re: $10,775 medical bill for stitches at hospital

You should have shopped around first.

That's a pretty big expense to not get up front pricing.

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You should have shopped around first.

That's a pretty big expense to not get up front pricing.

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That's the problem. Government and insurance have made it extremely difficult to get up front pricing. Costs are artificially high because "someone else" pays for the bill, and the relationship isn't between consumer and provider.

I’m just hoping they’ll cut the cost down because Ive barely been able to keep my head above water since the fricking hurricane last year. Everything’s fricked down here.

As the others have said, cash price is a hell of a lot different then the would charge an insurance company. Just go in and explain things to them and ask them what you can do.

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Check if you are eligible for COBRA from your former employer. You used to be able to retroactively get it and be covered... it was like $1,200 a month but cheaper than 10k.

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This. Do it now.

Also, we may (rightly) shite on the health insurance marketplace (Obamacare website) a lot around here, but losing your job is considered a life event that makes you eligible to purchase insurance through the marketplace outside of the standard enrollment window. They too will make your coverage retroactive.

It’ll be as expensive as shite - think over $500 per month - but paying for a couple of months is better than over $10k for a single medical bill.

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Check if you are eligible for COBRA from your former employer. You used to be able to retroactively get it and be covered... it was like $1,200 a month but cheaper than 10k.

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Why do this, his deductible may not have even been met and 80/20 or 70/30 not kick in?

The only way insurance would be helpful would be if and only if emergency room visits were treated as a copay like a doctor’s visit.

Let’s say, if he went the COBRA route and had to retroactively buy 2 or 3 months insurance, that is already a few grand in the hole just for insurance, then you have your deductibles which some are 2 or 3 grand before 80/20.

So for those keeping score:

Insurance premium: 1,500 (750x2)
Copay: 2,000
80/20: 2,000

Total: 5,500 bill was 10k

At that price, just negotiate. If you don’t pay, what is the worse that would happen to them. They sell the debt for a few cents on the dollar to a collection agency and collect only about 100 dollars.

That is why there needs to be a huge reset in health care costs or a true accounting of what it really costs per procedure. Not let’s bill the crap out of everything and let’s see what and who pays what and negotiate to a reasonable price afterwards.

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Yeah it was 2,850 dollars for 12 stitches.

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I agree there is something wrong with this. I'll bet the hospital was a shiny new building with brand new state of the art equipment. Hospitals continue to be built and expanded even in down economic times. Yeah, that's too expensive and I guess if we were truthful we'd all agree something should be done to bring down the cost of medical care. And you should be able to refuse the CAT scan but I guess they would not stitch the wound closed then. They have us over a barrel.

I have group insurance and here's how my hospital stay played out.

I had these god awful stomach pains with fever, something was F'ed up so I drove myself to the ER.

Could barely walk in due to the pain

They did tests, put me on a liquid diet and kept me for observation for 4 days. Plus pain Rx every 4 hours. No surgery, and actually I never even got a clear explanation as to what I had.

Total Bill - $78,000 frick these people

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In between jobs, lost insurance last month,

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You didn't elect cobra or apply for medicaid or temporary assistance or anything?

You lost your job and insurance and then took no actions to protect yourself?