That\u2019s 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. <\/p>\n
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 \u2014 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\u2019 drive from home.) <\/p>\n
But $500 \u2014 to be honest, that was at the low end of what we envisioned it could be. And with our high-deductible plan, it\u2019s all out-of-pocket. <\/p>\n
And how much were the charges before the insurance negotiated discount? $1,300+. <\/p>\n
Every time I read about hospitals whining about uncompensated care, it really galls me that they cite gross numbers. Somewhere \u2014 quite some time ago \u2014 I read that, in reality, there really isn\u2019t 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\u2019t that far from the percentage of charges paid for the insured<\/i>, when taking into account the negotiated discounts in their plans. <\/p>\n
Is this true? I don\u2019t know \u2014 and I doubt that a google search would find this article for me again. <\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
That\u2019s 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, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2209,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-641","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n