Currently, emergency rooms are bound by law to provide care to all patients, regardless of insurance status. Busy emergency rooms will triage patients, ensuring those who need care the most get it first. Unfortunately for uninsured patients, the hospital will hand them a bill as they leave; something simple as wound cleaning and a few stitches will run upwards of several thousand dollars. That total can exceed tens, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars depending on level care and length of stay.
A family member of mine recently had a medical episode while we were at a restaurant. Spontaneous syncope followed by prolonged lightheartedness and loss of balance. The ambulance ride to the hospital alone cost over $7000. They arrived at the ER around 4pm and was released shortly before midnight. Within a couple hours of arriving my family member felt and that they had fully recovered, but the ER would not release them until a doctor was available to discuss test results. Around 10pm the doctor finally called them back; they found nothing out of the ordinary in the blood work, heart seemed to be working fine. We waited two more hours before they gave the okay for release.
The bill for the ambulance, ER care, and about a baker’s dozen of various fees and incidentals, was over $23000. Thankfully they had insurance, which covered most of it, but they still had to pay several thousand out of pocket for going to an “out of network” hospital. That alone is infuriating because not only is the entire concept of in-or-out of network medical providers a predatory practice, the choice of which ER to go to was up to the paramedics, it was never up to us. Even if it was up to us, we had no way of quickly knowing which local hospitals, if any, were “in network.”
Currently, emergency rooms are bound by law to provide care to all patients, regardless of insurance status. Busy emergency rooms will triage patients, ensuring those who need care the most get it first. Unfortunately for uninsured patients, the hospital will hand them a bill as they leave; something simple as wound cleaning and a few stitches will run upwards of several thousand dollars. That total can exceed tens, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars depending on level care and length of stay.
A family member of mine recently had a medical episode while we were at a restaurant. Spontaneous syncope followed by prolonged lightheartedness and loss of balance. The ambulance ride to the hospital alone cost over $7000. They arrived at the ER around 4pm and was released shortly before midnight. Within a couple hours of arriving my family member felt and that they had fully recovered, but the ER would not release them until a doctor was available to discuss test results. Around 10pm the doctor finally called them back; they found nothing out of the ordinary in the blood work, heart seemed to be working fine. We waited two more hours before they gave the okay for release.
The bill for the ambulance, ER care, and about a baker’s dozen of various fees and incidentals, was over $23000. Thankfully they had insurance, which covered most of it, but they still had to pay several thousand out of pocket for going to an “out of network” hospital. That alone is infuriating because not only is the entire concept of in-or-out of network medical providers a predatory practice, the choice of which ER to go to was up to the paramedics, it was never up to us. Even if it was up to us, we had no way of quickly knowing which local hospitals, if any, were “in network.”