The Hospital Bill
On the morning of June 15th, 2010 I drove myself to Harrisburg Hospital because of a sharp pain I had in my chest. I arrived around 3am and diagnosed with pancreatitis. Within a few hours I was admitted and given a room. The only way to recover from pancreatitis is to not eat or drink until my pancreas goes back to normal. So I was fed by IV and given morphine for the pain.
By the second day I was worried if my insurance was going to cover my hospital stay. I don’t think that is something anyone should have to worry about. I probably shouldn’t have even driven myself to the hospital but since my $1,000 bill for the ambulance ride to Hershey Medical Center after my motorcycle accident I wasn’t looking forward to another bill like that. So I drove.
I consider myself one of the fortunate people of our country to work a corporate job and have health benefits. Yet I still find myself stressed out whether the system would take care of me. And every year when I need to choose my health benefits package for the following 12 months it’s like trying to decipher the rosetta stone. There’s too many options. And each option changes depending on when/if deductibles are met. It’s a real crap shoot.
I remember one thing before being admitted. Someone from the emergency room told me that I would be billed separately for use of the tv and the phone. Mental check… don’t use the tv or the phone. Yet I still got a bill for this to which I had to call and inform them that I did not use either. Luckily they simply told me to ignore the bill then. Phew.
On the fourth day I was able to eat and drink juice with no pain and they released me. A few days later I received a letter saying that my hospital stay was approved by AETNA, my insurance company. I sighed with relief.
But not so soon! Then came a bill from my doctor for the followup that I had. And finally the bill above from Pinnacle Health. Ok, I AM happy that I didn’t have to pay the $8,261.70 that the four day hospital stay cost me. But I’m still left with a $614.14 bill.
This is why I can see how people in this country can try to avoid getting the proper care they need when they are sick. A lot of people don’t have an extra $600 sitting around collecting dust. And that is for someone that has a decent health plan. I’m sure a lot of people may have had to pay a lot more than that. So what is a person to do? Get sick and die because they can’t “afford” proper health care? Or get the proper health care and go into debt trying to pay it off for who knows how long.
I completely understand where you’re coming from; however, I’m going to apologize in advance for disagreeing with you.
Earlier this year I had a somewhat similar experience at the very same hospital. After severe abdominal pain I had my roommate at the time drive me to the ER around 11 pm. To make a long story short, I had my gall bladder removed the next morning. It cost my insurance company (which I had been on for only a year or so) nearly two years’ worth of my pre-tax salary. This is what was on my bill:
- ER admission
- Ultrasound
- 4 or 5 days admittance, all but 1 under a morphine drip
- Percocet for that last day + 20 or so pills to take home
- A 3.5-hour surgery under general anesthesia
- 4 or 5 days worth of television (more than I watched in the 6 months prior and the several months since)
- A follow-up
I got 3 or 4 bills for different things (including one 2 months after the fact for a random $25), but putting them all together I paid a ridiculously small fraction of what the surgery actually cost (somewhere in the neighborhood of 4-5%). It was still a lot of money, but a lot smaller than that top number.
Don’t get me wrong: I know a lot of people have piss-poor insurance, and a lot have no insurance at all. Had I not had insurance, I certainly wouldn’t be commenting on this blog post, I’d probably be at a 2nd or 3rd job. My problem is that what I took from your blog post (possibly incorrectly) is that you’re saying the system itself is broken. I don’t necessarily think that’s the case. I think more people should be in the system. It’d be great if we could find a way to insure every US citizen without bankrupting our grandchildren, but for the people like you and I who have good insurance plans, the system works.
You paid just over 7.4% of what your procedure cost (+/- deductible(s), copay(s), etc), which is a pretty small number in itself. Let’s not forget that insurance companies are businesses. They’re not doing what they do to engender the goodwill of their customers, they’re doing it to make a profit for their shareholders.
No need to apologize. I also see that view. We both paid a fraction of the entire cost of our care. I think it’s a “thorn in our side”. What amazes me is the total cost for care. I’d like to see what really makes up this total cost and why it is so much. Not that surgery should be cheap. But what is the “markup” on our healthcare system?
@Jonathan
I’m sure there’s quite a bit of markup along the way. My surgeon was an older gentleman, very highly regarded and definitely knew what he was doing. It wouldn’t shock me to learn he made $400,000 a year. To put that in perspective (as if it needs it), that’s $1,100 a day. Not that they shouldn’t be that well paid, and he probably paid $4,000/mo in student loans for 30 years after med school.
I think if everyone accepted that healthcare just inherently costs a TON of money, we’d be halfway there to a better solution than our two options right now, which seem to be “people without insurance are going to die” or “people with insurance are going to pay the premiums for several people without insurance.”