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My mother was moved from a nursing home to the emergency room of the hospital. The ER doctor called me and told me she would pass away that day (it was expected.)
I sat with her while she was in ER for several hours, then she was moved to a regular room. They gave her a shot for pain. She passed away several hours later.
The hospital billed MediCare over $75,000 for that one day.
How can an uninsured person afford something like this?????
They usually don't, it's called medicaid, tax payers pay for it. and there's no co-op or monthly premium.
people on Medicaid aren't uninsured, they are insured through Medicaid. But there are millions of people who are uninsured and do not qualify for Medicaid.
Fell free to move to India and take advantage of the wonderful life it has to offer too . What's the average salary in India too?
Why can't intelligent people discuss how some things are an improvement over the way we do something in the United States, without having to say that everything in the other country is better? Salaries are only a portion of why the person who is featured in that article is making revolutionary changes to healthcare services in India. It amazes me how people simply ignore that we have an incredibly expensive healthcare system in this country, and there are numerous examples around the world in almost every single area of healthcare of someone doing it better and cheaper than us.
I know, talking about wanting to improve things here is such an eye roller....
This isn't a medical problem, just a general statement so I put it on the other topics so my friends could see the factors on the amazing bill I got. I find the charges a bit excessive for my recent hospital stay. Wow....good thing I have insurance. Beware when you get older it costs more for our medical care. Yikes. I hope the my insurance plus Medicare (have this due to my disability) pays for this bill.
I was in there for 4 nights and 6 days, and didn't have surgery but had a heart catheterization and a stent in the heart. The bill is $75, 014. 50. The heart cath room was $30,882.00 which did NOT include the stent for the heart at a cost of $4,314.00. A nuclear heart stress test was $4,633.00 and they about killed me off in there. Cat scans were $4,684.00. The 2 bed room was $1,025 per night. The rest was prescription meds and supplies and other tests which told me not much about what else is wrong with my lungs. And still no accurate diagnosis but they keep trying with additional outpatient tests and charging me for tests and giving me no information but know there is something wrong with my lungs. Keep in mind these are not charges for doctors, anesthesia for the heart cath, charges for the radiologist, etc. How can an uninsured person afford something like this?????
Wow!
Part of the reason for all these tests is malpractice and the constant push for a zero-miss rate medical system. People want perfection and can't accept less, this is part of the reason for all these extra tests that "don't tell you anything".
If there wasn't such a push for the medical community to be near perfect every time and a tolerance for mistakes, you can bet that there'd be less tests ordered.
Another problem is the cost - I have no idea how the costs are tallied up... someone is getting rich out there, but it ain't the doctors I can tell you that.
For example - I'm an ER physician. The way I'm trained, there are a few things I can't miss when someone comes in for chest pain.
Even if the patient is pretty straightforward and it sounds like chest wall pain but has some risk factors - gotta run the tests. You know that someone's been burned before either by an atypical presentation that constitutes the 0.5-2% miss rate that we have in the Er with regards to heart attacks OR that patient who died of a cardiac arrest 6 MONTHS later where the plaintiff attorney was able to track down that there was an ER visit 6 months prior to the death that may or may not have had any bearing or relation or even cause-effect to the death, but the fact that no cardiac work up was done by the ER doc 6 months prior to A CARDIAC arrest probably means the ER doc was negligent.... and BOOM... you have yourself a subpoena.
So, whereas in the past you'd just get a chest X-ray and sent home with the diagnosis of chest wall strain or costochondritis, now you're getting the studies.... starts of with a chest X-ray, an EKG, a troponin/ckmb/ck, a d-dimer or a CTA of the chest, a BMP + Liver function test, a CBC + diff if there's a WBC elevation. Not only that but now you get placed on oxygen, on cardiac monitor. Then if all the studies come back OK, but you're a high risk patient with a TIMI score > 2 and even if the story is perfect for cardiac chest pain, there's still that chance that you at least get repeat lab draw for EKG and troponin OR you may get admitted for 23 hour rule out telemetry to get more troponins serially examined and trended.
You may ask - well, are you doing that to get paid more, Doc?
No - I don't get paid significantly more for a chest pain admit than I do for seeing someone with a bruised elbow.
2 low level patients (musculoskeletal trauma) can easily net me more money than a level 1 cardiac arrest patient - so I'm not milking the system.
The problem lies in the fact that my patients require perfection out of me and no one tolerates that 0.5% miss rate... especially not the attorneys.
Last edited by pinipig523; 08-08-2013 at 11:28 AM..
I cannot tell you the number of times I've heard of a lawsuit for a patient who came in for traumatic (meaning there was trauma, mechanical injury) shoulder pain but died 6 months later of a massive coronary.... the ER doc was sued because the plaintiff attorney stated that the ER should've done a lipid panel.
A LIPID PANEL!! Do they even know that NO ER does lipid panels because it is not an emergency nor is it in the arsenal of the emergency room? Do they even know that a proper lipid panel requires 8-10h of fasting?? Nope.. but if the attorney is able to convince a jury that the Er doc was negligent, did not properly do a thorough work up for a shoulder pain that was convincingly musculoskeletal... the doc must be negligent.
Why can't intelligent people discuss how some things are an improvement over the way we do something in the United States, without having to say that everything in the other country is better? Salaries are only a portion of why the person who is featured in that article is making revolutionary changes to healthcare services in India. It amazes me how people simply ignore that we have an incredibly expensive healthcare system in this country, and there are numerous examples around the world in almost every single area of healthcare of someone doing it better and cheaper than us.
I know, talking about wanting to improve things here is such an eye roller....
Why do people have to compare costs in India to costs in the US...different countries, different salary bases, different standard of care. They are not doing it better and that is the point. Why do millions flock to the US to get medical care if they can get it better and cheaper elsewhere?
I cannot tell you the number of times I've heard of a lawsuit for a patient who came in for traumatic (meaning there was trauma, mechanical injury) shoulder pain but died 6 months later of a massive coronary.... the ER doc was sued because the plaintiff attorney stated that the ER should've done a lipid panel.
A LIPID PANEL!! Do they even know that NO ER does lipid panels because it is not an emergency nor is it in the arsenal of the emergency room? Do they even know that a proper lipid panel requires 8-10h of fasting?? Nope.. but if the attorney is able to convince a jury that the Er doc was negligent, did not properly do a thorough work up for a shoulder pain that was convincingly musculoskeletal... the doc must be negligent.
There goes a $6,000,000 judgement.
Thanks for your extremely informative posts in this thread. The whole thread has been very educational for me. I confess that I know next to nothing about medical procedures and costs. Life is for learning though, and better late than never!
Between the two threads I've learned a lot in just one day but I've also caught a glimpse of how much more there is to know. Money changes everything huh.
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. What's the average salary in India too?
