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Old 05-24-2013, 03:52 PM
 
568 posts, read 1,121,707 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by hounewhome1 View Post
I asked if we could leave since everything looked fine and all that was needed was "observation", not before. I said we are ready to come twice a day to the hospital - that way we would have saved $3500 per night for the room. Nobody answered my question on the semi-private or common room and I'm not sure the hospital even has that.

As I said, the docs were next to amazing and the hospital is great but they should talk to people about money/billing/cost at some point before we leave. Getting a 70K bill is crazy and I have insurance to take care most of it. There are people who make less money than me - what will happen to their kids and families. Are there hospitals without LED TV's, in room catering service where we could take our kids if this happens again and that cost $500 per night and the Tylenol is maybe $1.00 for 5ml.
Not trying to get into your personal business, but if you racked up a 70K bill then something must have been seriously wronged with your child. It is evident that none of this could be done outpatient either, meaning your child needed to be admitted to the hospital. So coming back and forth to the hospital wasn't an option, because your child was sick and needed to be seen by various pediatric specialist. There are only three children's hospital in Houston, and if the illness was serious as it looks by the bill then no community hospital with no access to pediatric specialist would have kept your child. They would have transferred them straight to a children's hospital.

Administering personal meds are a serious no no in any hospital whether adult or pediatric. Both for safety and legal reasons.
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Old 05-24-2013, 04:07 PM
 
2,756 posts, read 3,776,031 times
Reputation: 4433
It makes me so mad when I hear stories like this and know that Rick Perry and his cronies are refusing $100 billion in Medicaid expansion because they don't want to "support" Obamacare. Shame on them. That's part of the reason that our healthcare system is broken.
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Old 05-24-2013, 04:10 PM
 
Location: League City
682 posts, read 1,931,641 times
Reputation: 443
Quote:
Originally Posted by hounewhome1 View Post
I asked if we could leave since everything looked fine and all that was needed was "observation", not before. I said we are ready to come twice a day to the hospital - that way we would have saved $3500 per night for the room. Nobody answered my question on the semi-private or common room and I'm not sure the hospital even has that.

As I said, the docs were next to amazing and the hospital is great but they should talk to people about money/billing/cost at some point before we leave. Getting a 70K bill is crazy and I have insurance to take care most of it. There are people who make less money than me - what will happen to their kids and families. Are there hospitals without LED TV's, in room catering service where we could take our kids if this happens again and that cost $500 per night and the Tylenol is maybe $1.00 for 5ml.
Children's hospitals are going to be some of the most expensive because of the specialized care they provide and they try to make them seem the most like home as possible for the comfort of the child. I'm not familiar with the ones here but I know that a lot do not have non-private rooms. The one in Austin does not (well, at least it didn't a few years back.)

You could take your kid to any hospital but you might not get as good of care, may not be as nice and depending on the problem, may get transferred to TCH anyways if it can't be handled there. You should be able to check the different hospitals to see if they have on-staff pediatricians for emergencies. If you have a pediatrician they usually work at specific hospitals and that is where you would want to go. Don't know about $500 rooms and $1 Tylenol, but it would probably be less than TCH.

Do you have a specific network of doctors and hospitals that are allowed by your insurance? If TCH and the doctors that provided care while you were there weren't in your network, that could be part of the problem you got such a large bill. And some insurance plans don't cover private rooms at the same rate as non-private rooms and yet others won't cover private rooms at all.
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Old 05-24-2013, 04:13 PM
 
Location: League City
682 posts, read 1,931,641 times
Reputation: 443
Quote:
Originally Posted by txdemo View Post
It makes me so mad when I hear stories like this and know that Rick Perry and his cronies are refusing $100 billion in Medicaid expansion because they don't want to "support" Obamacare. Shame on them. That's part of the reason that our healthcare system is broken.
And Obamacare doesn't fix it for everyone, it makes it worse for some. I work for a small company. If our health plan wasn't grandfathered we were told our rates would have went up x4 to be able to provide all the conditions required by Obamacare.
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Old 05-24-2013, 04:18 PM
 
17,183 posts, read 22,764,827 times
Reputation: 17472
You know, we are working on a health insurance system that was put in place in the 1940s. It makes no sense now to tie insurance to employment at all.

Is Employer-Based Health Insurance Worth Saving? - NYTimes.com

Quote:
Ask any group of health policy experts whether they would have put in place our employment-based health insurance system, had they had the luxury of designing our health system from scratch, the resounding answer most likely would be “No.” In fact, no other industrialized country has quite this arrangement. It is uniquely American in origin and in modus operandi.
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Old 05-24-2013, 04:25 PM
 
1,329 posts, read 3,528,957 times
Reputation: 989
Quote:
Originally Posted by coconutbutter View Post
Apologies for the semantics. You know what I was trying to say. :P
I was making the point that Hong Kong and Singapore are places where would-be patients need to demonstrate, up front, the ability to pay for medical treatment, or are refused service, and they are developed areas by most measures.
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Old 05-24-2013, 04:28 PM
 
1,329 posts, read 3,528,957 times
Reputation: 989
Quote:
Originally Posted by txdemo View Post
It makes me so mad when I hear stories like this and know that Rick Perry and his cronies are refusing $100 billion in Medicaid expansion because they don't want to "support" Obamacare. Shame on them. That's part of the reason that our healthcare system is broken.
I think the problem is that Federal funding is time limited. Once that ends, Texas has a big annual hole in its budget in perpetuity.
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Old 05-24-2013, 04:34 PM
 
2,756 posts, read 3,776,031 times
Reputation: 4433
Quote:
Originally Posted by jasonamd View Post
And Obamacare doesn't fix it for everyone, it makes it worse for some. I work for a small company. If our health plan wasn't grandfathered we were told our rates would have went up x4 to be able to provide all the conditions required by Obamacare.
I don't doubt that you heard that your rates would go up by x4 but I doubt that is correct. 99% of small businesses health insurance plans already meet the coverage standards of Obamacare. If your employer is in the 1% it's very likely that the health insurance they are providing isn't very good to begin with.
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Old 05-24-2013, 04:47 PM
 
164 posts, read 355,826 times
Reputation: 144
Quote:
Originally Posted by Zhang Fei View Post
I was making the point that Hong Kong and Singapore are places where would-be patients need to demonstrate, up front, the ability to pay for medical treatment, or are refused service, and they are developed areas by most measures.
I'm not sure what point you are trying to make given that Singapore's health care system is completely different from the US, not to mention, virtually impossible to replicate elsewhere. Most people who need services can actually afford them and have substantial funds accrued through compulsory Medisave due to nationalized health care and an increasing large privatized sector. Can't really comment on HK.

Even with my stints overseas (I have dual citizenship), I wasn't worried about whether or not treatment at an ER would put me in complete financial ruin or actually contemplate not going. In the US, I have decided against the ER more than once because I knew that with insurance, the bill would be extremely difficult to pay off. Thankfully, it was only a flesh wound.

No one is saying that the OP shouldn't have to pay for ANY services, but rather, that s/he shouldn't be forced between a cost that could be an extreme financial burden/financial ruin or saying no to treatment.

Last edited by coconutbutter; 05-24-2013 at 05:01 PM.. Reason: Typos!
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Old 05-24-2013, 04:49 PM
 
Location: League City
682 posts, read 1,931,641 times
Reputation: 443
Quote:
Originally Posted by txdemo View Post
I don't doubt that you heard that your rates would go up by x4 but I doubt that is correct. 99% of small businesses health insurance plans already meet the coverage standards of Obamacare. If your employer is in the 1% it's very likely that the health insurance they are providing isn't very good to begin with.
Our current plan does meet it...that is why I said if it wasn't grandfathered. However, being grandfathered it isn't required to provide every provision in Obamacare. Now the company is stuck with not being able to make any changes that change any benefits to help control costs because then grandfathered status would be lost. Can't change providers now unless coverage and costs remain the same...or grandfathered status is lost.
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