That’s how much the ER bill was that arrived in the mail yesterday, for the costs associated with the ten stitches my 6-year-old got to mend a gash in his head.
He banged his head into the door hinge two weeks ago, and we bandaged him up and took him the ER, an expedition which, as these things go, was relatively pain-free, both literally (due to liberal doses of topical analgesic) and figuratively — the ER was quiet, we were seen nearly immediately, the staff was all professional and yet gentle with my son, and we were home in two hours. (It helps that the hospital is five minutes’ drive from home.)
But $500 — to be honest, that was at the low end of what we envisioned it could be. And with our high-deductible plan, it’s all out-of-pocket.
And how much were the charges before the insurance negotiated discount? $1,300+.
Every time I read about hospitals whining about uncompensated care, it really galls me that they cite gross numbers. Somewhere — quite some time ago — I read that, in reality, there really isn’t that much of an uncompensated care issue, because, for all the deadbeats, there are equally many people who do pay their bills, perhaps on an installment plan, and that, in the end, the percentage of the hospital charges for the uninsured that ultimately is paid isn’t that far from the percentage of charges paid for the insured, when taking into account the negotiated discounts in their plans.
Is this true? I don’t know — and I doubt that a google search would find this article for me again.
But the very fact that the uninsured are charged more than twice the cost that I pay, due not to any insurance benefit but just price-reduction agreements, is unarguably wrong.
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