While on the topic of market distortions, I believe I mentioned a recent trip to the hospital. I was experiencing bad foot pain. I thought I had re-broken some bones. I drove myself to the hospital. They had no wheelchairs, so I had to walk the length of the building to the emergency room. I passed out while registering. I think it was from sucking up the pain, but they insisted on giving me every cardiac treatment they could muster. I asked if I had to submit, but I didn’t know proper procedures for declining services. I could live with whatever was wrong with my heart, I could live with occasional fainting. It was the foot that was killing me.
My heart came out just fine. The doctor said my x-rays were fine, too. Fortunately, the nurse corroborated my story that I hadn’t yet been to radiology. I had to wait longer to actually get x-rays, the doctor saying he had been looking at somebody else’s x-rays.
I don’t carry insurance because I can’t afford it, my employer can’t afford it, and my Republican friends would eat me alive if I were to carry Obamacare. I considered potential costs for five hours before I made up my mind to try to drive to the hospital.
A bill was never received in the mail. The boss got a call at work about it being past due. So, I started calling around now that I had a lead on who I needed to pay. They told me charges totaled $815 just for the visit, no doctors, no services. I asked for an itemization, since it seemed all I got was sneers from hospitalists who looked down upon an unwashed person who did not have the luxury of eating fresh fruits and vegetables and bottled water all the time.
The itemization arrived in the mail. It read “x-ray/imaging services: $270.00, clinic and outpatient services: $645.” Since the last visit to the hospital, about ten years ago, charged me $400 twice for ambulance rides that never happened and $860 twice for a procedure that happened only once, I wasn’t exactly instilled with confidence in the hospital’s billing department.
I called to question what “clinical and outpatient services” I received, and was told by the nice lady that they would open an investigation and let me know the results. I is-pose people can’t be trusted to see their own hospital bills. If only we could get other businesses to market their goods like this. I’m still waiting for the professional/specialist bills.
