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Ebola Roulette posted:How is this even legal. This is why capitalism and medicine don't mix. You can't "shop around" if estimates are lies and the actual costs are hidden and can be much higher. Yes, it's infuriating to hear politicians talk about shopping around for healthcare for multiple reasons. First being the one from the article where the estimate has very little value. Second, you are constrained to hospitals your insurance covers. Third, this only applies to non-emergency procedures. Health insurance that only covers 70% or 80% of the procedure is a sham. 20% of a $100,000 procedure is a lot of loving money for most people.
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Aug 30, 2019 15:41
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You CANNOT get any cost information about anesthesia either. Nor can you opt out of it for any procedure I've tried. Every time I've tried getting an estimate or cost for anesthesia they won't give me one. At one point I got someone on the phone to say that the rate is based on several factors and I asked what those factors were and how much they affected the cost, and from then on all the answers were "that's confidential/proprietary information"...for billing. I feel for that guy. I wonder if he got "pre-collections" calls before the procedure like I did. You would think they would know how much you are going to owe when trying to collect but they don't. They just try to collect any money they can ahead of time. E: also asking these questions makes them think that you're poor and can't afford healthcare. I had a doctor sit me with someone in billing and said she could help me with "my situation". My situation being that I was asking for the breakdown of facility and doctor costs. SpartanIvy fucked around with this message at 15:57 on Aug 30, 2019 |
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Aug 30, 2019 15:54
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The problem is hospitals are allowed to get away with this kind of bullshit for ~reasons~. If you have an outpatient procedure done at a free standing facility through a private practice it’s not hard to get an exact cost estimate. My in-office vasectomy estimate was right to the cent. My wife’s ablation/Essure had to be done through one of the mega hospitals since they employ all the local gyns. They had no idea what it cost, but “suggested” $2,000 in advance. I paid them zero in advance, got a bill for $1600, and a refund for $800. It’s maybe even more frustrating when you’re a doc in the system and they still jerk you around.
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Aug 30, 2019 16:19
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KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:i bet im more successful than fellow azn sensazn john smith and somehow i managed to not turn in to a total loving dickhead so im pretty sure its a personal john smith problem and not like, a FORUMS HIVEMIND problem At least he only implied his superiority complex and had other redeeming qualities. Eric the Mauve posted:The forums hivemind problem is everyone loving constantly talking to and about him. If we all would just ignore him we wouldn't get 3 pointless pages every time he posts, jfc E: ...gently caress Uh, medical billing is bullshit and opaque and the entire system needs to be rebuilt from the ground up. If even a person with the time, intelligence, and resources to devote to research and preparation can't win how the gently caress is anyone else supposed to succeed?
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Aug 30, 2019 16:28
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here's a good BWM story regarding a friend this friend bought a 2015 FJ Cruiser (limited edition! fully loaded!) with 60k miles on it i think he paid over $30k for it (maybe close to $40k? i forget, i was busy trying to collect my jaw off the floor) his reasoning? "dude, only 2500 of these were manufactured, so after I put another 100k miles on this thing, i can sell it close to what it cost me because everyone fuckin wants them!"  over the next year or so, he wants to: - change the front differential (for better off-roading) - get a bigger roof rack - change the front bumper (he doesn't like the current one) - install a side ladder so the roof is easier to climb for loading/unloading - change the doors so the rear seats are easier to access - buy a small cargo trailer for longer camping trips and of course, as these things always go, this guy barely makes enough money to afford rent but he does have a rich dad so i guess there's that!
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Aug 30, 2019 16:42
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SpartanIvy posted:You CANNOT get any cost information about anesthesia either. Nor can you opt out of it for any procedure I've tried. Every time I've tried getting an estimate or cost for anesthesia they won't give me one. At one point I got someone on the phone to say that the rate is based on several factors and I asked what those factors were and how much they affected the cost, and from then on all the answers were "that's confidential/proprietary information"...for billing. What kind of barbaric system is this where people are genuinely considering asking for medical treatment without anaesthesia because it's too expensive. wtf
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Aug 30, 2019 16:44
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enraged_camel posted:here's a good BWM story regarding a friend With all that work, he's not going to make out ahead, but those cars do seem to be worth a lot. A quick googling gave me a handful of 2015's for sale and they were like $37k-$41k. He's banking on people still really wanting that car in 6 years or so though.
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Aug 30, 2019 16:47
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Paying medical bills in the US without questioning/ challenging them is BWM. When my wife had our baby she had an epidural and it turns out the anesthesiology group the hospital used was out of network. A month or so later we got a bill putting the epidural at $16k, minus 75% payment by my insurance and billing us the $4k balance. My cousin happens to run an anesthesiology group so I called him to see what the gently caress. He said those greedy fuckers should be glad at the exorbitant $12k they already got paid for a routine epidural, and "balance billing" like that is illegal in Florida to boot. When I called their billing they were just "oops lol our bad you don't owe anything". Motherfuckers, I bet if I had sent you $4k you would have gladly taken it and been on your merry way.
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Aug 30, 2019 16:55
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Dik Hz posted:After the landlord thread shenanigans, I don't think you can really say that this subforum is the "YOU LIBERALS" of the internet world. What thread is this now?
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Aug 30, 2019 16:55
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Lotta people ITT seem to be mad they couldn’t capitalize on people not wanting to die.
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Aug 30, 2019 16:57
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Also I had an emergency hospital situation right out of college that was covered completely by my insurance (worked for the state) but the hospital tried to bill me $600 additional dollars for some reason. I just said I wasn't paying it as everything was covered by my insurance and they eventually dropped it.
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Aug 30, 2019 17:02
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Chaotic Flame posted:What thread is this now? The rental property thread  CSPAM brigaded it when it turned out goons owned property that they rented out for a profit.
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Aug 30, 2019 17:23
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I had an overnight hospital stay once (hooray for e coli). When it was done, the bills started trickling over the next few weeks and months in for the hospital, several doctors, urgent care, etc. One of them was $600 for a social worker. I struggled to remember what that was. Then I remembered. A social worker poked her head into the room. She stepped in and asked if my home situation is OK and if I'm safe at home. I said yes. She left. She was in the room less than 2 minutes, and billed me $600 for that. I called the hospital and told them that I was not going to pay that. They removed it immediately. Health care and medical billing is so bogus.
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Aug 30, 2019 17:33
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Yes, so in essence you are in fact quite hostile to the successful. I understand that your specific justification is slightly different from that cited by me. But my representation of the attitude seems reasonable given your post.KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:i bet im more successful than fellow azn sensazn john smith and somehow i managed to not turn in to a total loving dickhead so im pretty sure its a personal john smith problem and not like, a FORUMS HIVEMIND problem DarkHorse posted:They hate him because he's an ignorant rear end with unwarranted arrogance for his success. He's like my oblivious college friend who got a co-op at his dads company I am not White, my family was poor (Asian immigrants), and we have no political connections. Yet we bootstrapped ourselves up (All my siblings are good too. But to clarify, we are not mega successful, just normal people level of doing good).
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Aug 30, 2019 17:43
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You make me want to be more hostile to the successful of you’re any indication of successful people, just FYI. You really shouldn’t be the spokesperson.
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Aug 30, 2019 17:50
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KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:i bet im more successful than fellow azn sensazn john smith and somehow i managed to not turn in to a total loving dickhead so im pretty sure its a personal john smith problem and not like, a FORUMS HIVEMIND problem I bet a lot of people here are more successful than him, but nobody else is insecure enough to brag about it while spouting off useless political opinions held only by "enlightened" 14-year-olds. There are loads of doctors, engineers, scientists, etc. roaming around here and it's a pretty fair bet that they're all highly successful and but also not douchebags. I mean I guess I'm not familiar with what the gently caress he's worth (except for cluttering up my ignore list) but tbh I don't really care  Ebola Roulette posted:How is this even legal. This is why capitalism and medicine don't mix. You can't "shop around" if estimates are lies and the actual costs are hidden and can be much higher. Yeah I saw this bullshit yesterday and it pissed me off. The whole argument these days is, "well you have to be responsible and shop around!" Well that's worth jack poo poo, and now there's proof. I mean I understand the core issue. There isn't a good way for doctors/hospitals to REALLY know how much any given procedure will cost on any given person. But to me that's just proof positive that the system is horribly broken and there isn't a drat thing an individual can do about it aside from roll over and die from lack of treatment. There's a reason over 500,000 families in the US file for bankruptcy every year due to medical bills. DaveSauce fucked around with this message at 17:54 on Aug 30, 2019 |
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Aug 30, 2019 17:51
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John Smith posted:
Arrogance is never warranted by anyone for any reason. The very definition of the word defies this statement.
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Aug 30, 2019 18:01
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My friend's girlfriend has seven figures of medical debt from ovarian cancer as a teenager. She had health insurance at the time. Twenty years later, the bills keep showing up, but they just get laughed at and tossed in the recycling. They will never get married because they'll pester him for it too
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Aug 30, 2019 18:04
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Enchanted Hat posted:What kind of barbaric system is this where people are genuinely considering asking for medical treatment without anaesthesia because it's too expensive. wtf About ten years ago a guy attempting to mug me hit me in the head with a tire iron in my parking lot. I passed out shortly thereafter, and the paramedics insisted I go to the hospital, because I definitely had a concussion. I was unemployed at the time, so I said "no." They tried to insist, telling me that I could negotiate the bill, I still said "no." I looked it up after, and there probably only a 1-2% chance of me dying, but a virtually 100% chance that I would still be paying off those medical bills now. Things have only gotten worse, since.
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Aug 30, 2019 18:11
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Thanatosian posted:About ten years ago a guy attempting to mug me hit me in the head with a tire iron in my parking lot. I passed out shortly thereafter, and the paramedics insisted I go to the hospital, because I definitely had a concussion. I was unemployed at the time, so I said "no." They tried to insist, telling me that I could negotiate the bill, I still said "no." I looked it up after, and there probably only a 1-2% chance of me dying, but a virtually 100% chance that I would still be paying off those medical bills now. These days, you could call an uber to take you to a hospital instead! It will only cost $15 or so, plus maybe a $50 cleaning fee if your head was leaking
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Aug 30, 2019 18:29
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canyoneer posted:These days, you could call an uber to take you to a hospital instead! It will only cost $15 or so, plus maybe a $50 cleaning fee if your head was leaking Riding in an ambulance is super BWM
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Aug 30, 2019 18:32
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howdoesishotweb posted:It’s maybe even more frustrating when you’re a doc in the system and they still jerk you around. I was reading this Atlantic article today and, while there isn't any good BWM content, there is this choice line from a doctor about how the hospital charges. quote:Ghaly told me he was a fellow at Columbia at the time. “We are on salary, and they bill for us,” he said. “I have no idea what they bill, or why it was out of network. We’re not involved in it at all. This is an unfortunate part of our health system.” Imagine being a part of this lovely system and mostly being powerless to do anything about it (unless you want to staff up a billing department and reduce patient seeing hours to deal with insurance stuff).
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Aug 30, 2019 18:40
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Hi yes I'd like to opt out of anesthesia please.
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Aug 30, 2019 18:50
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EAT FASTER!!!!!! posted:Hi yes I'd like to opt out of anesthesia please. Too late gas passer.
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Aug 30, 2019 19:08
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When the customer is not permitted to know how much a thing costs until after they've consumed it there's mind boggling price gouging, amazing
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Aug 30, 2019 19:35
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I had a hernia repair, and I was handed stuff to sign after they had the IV started and had given me some sort of anesthesia that felt fantastic but certainly impaired my critical thinking. I suspect it was done that way intentionally.
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Aug 30, 2019 19:59
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DaveSauce posted:There's a reason over 500,000 families in the US file for bankruptcy every year due to medical bills. They file for bankruptcy for debt that *includes* medical bills. It would be just as accurate to say "over 500,000 families in the US file for bankruptcy every year due to car loans." Or "mortgages." Or whatever other single form of debt is part of the bucket. The paper where that figure comes from even mentions towards the end: quote:Many debtors described a complex web of problems involving illness, work, and family. Dissecting medical from other causes of bankruptcy is difficult. We cannot presume that eliminating the medical antecedents of bankruptcy would have prevented all of the filings we classified as "medical bankruptcies. But that doesn't stop the sound-bite. If you read the study, you find that only 27% of the survey had unreimbursed medical expenses greater than $1000. If you're going bankrupt, you're not going bankrupt just because you have $1000 in medical debt. (And in addition, the study also conflated the state of having medical bills with the state of missing work due to illness; the latter isn't a case of debt, it's a case of having no income.)
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Aug 30, 2019 20:30
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Yeah it's probably only like 300k families.
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Aug 30, 2019 20:40
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Phanatic posted:They file for bankruptcy for debt that *includes* medical bills. It would be just as accurate to say "over 500,000 families in the US file for bankruptcy every year due to car loans." Or "mortgages." Or whatever other single form of debt is part of the bucket. Nobody is arguing that medical bills are their ONLY debt. You may as well say that the sandwich they ate for lunch yesterday caused them to file for bankruptcy if you're going to use that logic. Phanatic posted:If you read the study, you find that only 27% of the survey had unreimbursed medical expenses greater than $1000. If you're going bankrupt, you're not going bankrupt just because you have $1000 in medical debt. Most Americans can't come up with $1000 on the spot; they'd have to borrow, sell something, or put it on credit. So yes, people near their financial breaking point will absolutely need to file bankruptcy over an extra $1000 of debt. I guess maybe you could possibly argue that an unexpected $1000 car repair would have the same effect, but if your car breaks you can ride a bike or get a lift from a friend, or get a terrible predatory loan for a POS from a buy-here-pay-here lot. If your leg breaks, you don't have much of a choice.
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Aug 30, 2019 20:58
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DaveSauce posted:Yeah I saw this bullshit yesterday and it pissed me off. The whole argument these days is, "well you have to be responsible and shop around!" Well that's worth jack poo poo, and now there's proof. The thing is that it has always been bullshit anyway. Maybe for out patient stuff it could work; but never would it work for emergencies. I remember 15 years ago I had to go to the hospital for an asthma attack. My parents called 911 and an ambulance came and hauled me to a hospital. Come to find out the ambulance company used was out of network and I was on the hook for around $5k (the oxygen & albuterol the administered was about $1k lmfao) and the lip service I got back was that I should have used an in network ambulance. Which of course is what most sane people do when they call 911 for a medical emergency. There's simply no way to shop around for that sort of thing and even if you knew which company was in network prior to calling, you're not going to be able to choose the ambulance they send. And even if you could every second counts so you're risking death to do so. Phanatic posted:They file for bankruptcy for debt that *includes* medical bills. It would be just as accurate to say "over 500,000 families in the US file for bankruptcy every year due to car loans." Or "mortgages." Or whatever other single form of debt is part of the bucket. Call me crazy but I think this number should be 0. The statistic might be sensationalized a bit but there is still an underlying truth that people are being hit hard for a basic human need that should be provided to all.
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Aug 30, 2019 21:00
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If I'm making well budgeted mortgage and CC payments, and then get hit with $500k in medical bills and can no longer pay my existing debt, I'm going to attribute the bankruptcy to the medical bills. There are a million other ways you can nitpick the statistic though because these things are complicated, but it's worth considering that these papers refer to them as "medical bankruptcies" and major journals regularly publish them that way.
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Aug 30, 2019 21:05
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Enchanted Hat posted:What kind of barbaric system is this where people are genuinely considering asking for medical treatment without anaesthesia because it's too expensive. wtf  Jordan7hm posted:Yeah it's probably only like 300k families. 
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Aug 30, 2019 21:06
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Debts: Discover Card: $2,000 Gap store card: $800 Visa: $3,400 Car loan: $8,000 Medical debt: $450,000 Student loans: $20,000 I have too much debt I'm going to declare bankruptcy but it's not necessarily a medical bankruptcy.
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Aug 30, 2019 21:07
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canyoneer posted:Debts: Spend less on medical. Did I do this meme right?
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Aug 30, 2019 21:16
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SpartanIvy posted:You CANNOT get any cost information about anesthesia either. Nor can you opt out of it for any procedure I've tried.  To be fair, and to frame this within the American capitalist hell-system paradigm, the reason you can't opt out of anesthesia is because patients had a habit of dying of shock on the table before it became standard of care. Also, with a few exceptions (like Nazi death camps), doctors have not been trained to perform procedures on screaming, writhing patients for at least 150 years. Allowing patients to opt out of anesthesia would cost too much in malpractice suits. quote:E: also asking these questions makes them think that you're poor and can't afford healthcare. I had a doctor sit me with someone in billing and said she could help me with "my situation". My situation being that I was asking for the breakdown of facility and doctor costs. Your "situation" is that you're not a doctor earning in the top 5% of salaries. They're just trying to help you with your failure to actualize the American Dream.
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Aug 30, 2019 21:48
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If you can’t opt out of anesthesia, what happens if it wears off while they’re actively cutting into you? Can you at least get a discount? Maybe a coupon for your next procedure?
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Aug 30, 2019 23:36
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Oh god whatever his name is smith isnlote change Literal cancer. Asshp rear end in a top hat Just don’t let him Prost Pet Pay Post
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Aug 31, 2019 00:15
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DaveSauce posted:Nobody is arguing that medical bills are their ONLY debt. "Due to medical bills" means "because of medical bills." If the medical bills are not the only debt, you cannot make that assertion and the study's authors even stated that flat-out. quote:You may as well say that the sandwich they ate for lunch yesterday caused them to file for bankruptcy if you're going to use that logic. Yes, exactly! Those people have medical bills, auto loan bills, possibly student loans, credit card debt, etc. So why not say they declared bankruptcy due to credit card debt? It'd be just as accurate. quote:Most Americans can't come up with $1000 on the spot; they'd have to borrow, sell something, or put it on credit. So yes, people near their financial breaking point will absolutely need to file bankruptcy over an extra $1000 of debt. Then it'd be far more accurate to say they went bankrupt to due to poor financial planning, an inability to save, living beyond their means, or spending too much money on candles. If one of the BWM people who gets posted about here shows a budget showing how they spend hundreds of dollars a month on eating out and have 5 credit cards maxed out and a 72-month underwater auto loan winds up having $1000 out-of-pocket costs for a medical emergency and goes bankrupt, it is positively disingenous to claim that that person went bankrupt due to medical bills. canyoneer posted:I have too much debt I'm going to declare bankruptcy but it's not necessarily a medical bankruptcy. Again, only 27% of respondents had more than $1000 in medical expenses. It's more like: Debts: Discover Card: $2,000 Gap store card: $800 Visa: $3,400 Car loan: $8,000 Medical debt: $1000 Student loans: $20,000 Would you consider that a bankruptcy due to medical bills? Lead out in cuffs posted:To be fair, and to frame this within the American capitalist hell-system paradigm, the reason you can't opt out of anesthesia is because patients had a habit of dying of shock on the table before it became standard of care. Also, with a few exceptions (like Nazi death camps), doctors have not been trained to perform procedures on screaming, writhing patients for at least 150 years. Allowing patients to opt out of anesthesia would cost too much in malpractice suits. I didn't interpret that as opting out of general anaesthesia. My father was a small-town country doctor and more than once a neighbor or a friend showed up at the house needing something stitched up, and my father said "poo poo, Lester, I don't have any novacain," and was told "Go ahead, I don't need that stuff." Phanatic fucked around with this message at 00:24 on Aug 31, 2019 |
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Aug 31, 2019 00:16
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The cost of medical care in America is fine, it's irresponsible people who can't pay for their health. You heard it here first folks.
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Aug 31, 2019 00:30
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If only it cost as much to get rid of forum's cancer as it does for the real thing.
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Aug 31, 2019 00:32
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