How much can that cost?

[Chris Fite]

My little grandson, 15 months old, went into the hospital two weeks ago. He came home yesterday. In the two weeks, he was treated for double pneumonia and empyema. He has a couple of more weeks of antibiotic therapy to endure at home by intravenous catheter. When they left the hospital, my daughter received the incomplete (incomplete?) bill. There is more to come, that is. $89,000.

She just bought a house for less than that.

I will be checking the limits on my policy tomorrow, when I get home. In case you think you don't need medical insurance. I am glad he has insurance to cover it.

[Vaughn McMillan]

Wow, that seems a lot of money for two weeks in the hospital, but I don't really have much to compare it to. I guess $55,000 to $60,000 for my broken back 5 years ago was a bargain. (Another "thank goodness for insurance" moment.)

I hope your grandson completes his recovery quickly now that he's back at home with his mom.

- Vaughn

[Dennis Peacock]

Chris,

Medical costs are high for several reasons. One of which I remember about when I worked at a hospital in the IT department. I found out most of this while doing their billing each month.
1. There's a lot of folks out there that can't or won't pay for past treatment
2. Insurance costs continue to rise and what they pay is decreasing

If "I" had your situation like your grandson? And it was one of my kids? It would be up to ME to pay 20% of the bill as our company switched to a newer less paying insurance plan. I go out of pocket almost $4K before they pay for anything, no drug card...I get to pay full price at the drug store. Once the family deductible is met, then they only pay 80%.

BTW, I'm NOT in the medical career....just someone who worked there before.

[Spence DePauw]

As a daily rate, that might be cheap. My wife had a severely detached retina last fall. She wound up having the "open up the eyeball" surgery to fix it. It was outpatient. We entered the door at 4:30pm and left the premises just before 10:00pm. Hospital bill was $16,800.:eek: :eek: :mad:

According to my calculator, that's about $2800/hour, door to door. Note that is the hospital only, the surgeon and anesthetic were over and above that. Fortunately, we still have good insurance.:)

Spence

[David Fried]

I must admit to complaining about the high cost of medical insurance. Then my daughter sick. After paying premiums for 25 years suddenly I'm ahead. Whew! I hope your insurance companys through for you as well as mine did for me.


Dave Fried

[Charles McKinley]

If you are without insurance you can negotiate a lot of the charges. with a sudden illnes it is harder than a planned surgery but it still can be done. They will also work with you to set up a payment plan. It is better than ruining your credit.

To take Dennis's post a step further they are required by law to treat everyone, regaurdless of ability to pay or if they are here legally or not.

[Ken Garlock]

The sad thing is that the insurance company will take that 89K and recalculate their payment for the listed services. I'll bet a coffee that when the smoke clears the insurance company will pay about 50%, and your daughter will pay less than 20% of what the insurance company said the bill was really worth. Every time I get a statement of payment from medicare and our insurance company, I am amazed at how much they just reject.

Getting back to "sad"; the poor guy that has no medical insurance has no recourse, as I understand it, and has to pay the outrageous amount. The medical profession learned its billing techniques from Attila the Hun.

I want you guys to keep working and paying into social security and medicare, I need the help.:)

[Lee DeRaud]

My little grandson, 15 months old, went into the hospital two weeks ago. He came home yesterday. In the two weeks, he was treated for double pneumonia and empyema. He has a couple of more weeks of antibiotic therapy to endure at home by intravenous catheter. When they left the hospital, my daughter received the incomplete (incomplete?) bill. There is more to come, that is. $89,000.That sounded high at first glance, but upon a re-read...maybe not. An infant with double pneumonia and emphysema sounds like a good chunk of that two weeks was spent in a pediatric ICU: $5-10K per day would not surprise me under those circumstances.

[Paul Downes]

Demand an itemized bill. I have had to do this before and got a lot of crap charges removed. I got the song and dance about having to charge me because some people do not pay their bills. It seems it is standard practice to pad the bill with elevated charges and 'standard fees' I found they were charging me for services that were considered standard on all bills. The problem was is that we never used many of the charged fees and services. Even though I have good insurance it got me cranked to see all the add on fees.
My insurance carrier had a very restrictive condition on ambulance coverage. I was basicly only covered 100% for emergency transfers between hospitals. This happened to be exactly what had occured in a situation involving my infant son. The insurance co. refused to pay the exorbidant charge and the ambulance co. tried to sue me for the rest of the bill, threatening to ruin my credit. I told the owner that he could go ahead and do his worst, but that if I was turned down for a home mortagage loan he would pay for my new house........He dropped his complaint and accepted the insurance carrier's limit. You can contest much of what is on a hospital bill.

[Robert Mickley]

I could believe 89,000. I had bone spurs removed from my right shoulder last year. Outpatient surgery, in at 6AM out by 3 PM total bill was around 12,000. Wife has GREAT insurance we paid around 500 of that. Insurance rejectd some stuff and paid 8500.

13 years ago when my great niece was born, she had a condition where only half of her heart developed. Nephews wife had her at a local hospital, they found the problem right off and sent her to Todds here in Youngstown, She spent exactly 30 minutes there and they had her on a Helo bound for Philly. She wasn't even 2 days old and had open heart surgery. You wouldn't know it today, she is a real terror. Their bill was in excess of 750,000. :eek: Hospital wrote off a large chunk on their own as did the surgeon and some others. Even with what the insurance paid they still coughed up close to 30,000 out of pocket.