Less than three months passed between the diagnosis and when I first got sent to collections.
You wouldn't believe the deluge of bills that come in from doctors, imaging centers, and various labs. If you need to get in an ambulance, you may get bills from both the ambulance company AND the fire fighers who show up and check out the action while the paramedics work. That audience alone set me back $225. I think the ambulance wanted another $200 on top of that. They dinged my insurance $2800. I was driven 700 feet to the emergency room. I don't recall a whole lot, but I asked for and received 7 heated blankets in the ER. $50 each.
The bill that got me sent to collections was for less than $60 for a lab in Texas. They sent two bills that got buried in the pile next to the door. At the time I got the collections call, I found it challenging to walk from my bed to the mailbox. My surgeon wanted me to walk one mile per day. My credit is about 80 points lower now.
I had hoped that the ACA would be a stepping stone to a better health system in this country. It could still happen, but not while we allow corporations to seek rents as we all inevitably fall ill. Until then, OP is right, don't get sick in America.
I'm confused, don't you want to reach your deductible as soon as possible? Isn't that when your insurance actually starts paying out?
Of course, the post has no numbers, so it's impossible to judge the quality of the insurance plan. And the deductible isn't exactly a surprise, you know it when you get the plan, so paying this much when you have an emergency shouldn't be a surprise either. It still sucks if you can't afford better.
Translation:
1. I spent the absolute maximum amount of money which can be substantial if you're on a high deductible plan
2. I had a very unhealthy year
I lived in Australia for five years and when I came home to the USA, I realized that most people here in America are indoctrinated to believe our system (for anything not just healthcare) is better than everyone else’s when it just isn’t true
They both ended up needing the surgery. When the sister in the US visited her doctor, and he noticed the condition, the first thing he asked was if she had eaten breakfast. If she hadn't, he could schedule the surgery for that day, otherwise he'd have to schedule it for the next morning.
When the sister in Canada had the same condition, her doctor scheduled the next available surgery, and prescribed bed rest until then. She could get out of bed to use the bathroom and bathe, but otherwise should be laying down until she had the surgery, because a small mishap could damage her spine and cause permanent paralysis. Despite the severe risk of injury and the extreme side effects of prolonged bed rest, it took six months to get the surgery. If she didn't have support of her family, she wouldn't have been able to afford waiting that long.
When a medical condition impacts your ability to work, traveling to the US to pay cash for the surgery may be cheaper than waiting. There's even an official Canadian web page with advice for traveling outside of Canada to get medical care (https://travel.gc.ca/travelling/health-safety/medical-care-o...) and it expressly lists bullet points of the benefits of doing so.
It was literally months of going through various hoops to get approval from the insurance company. When the surgery happened, the surgeon billed $80k for about 2.5 hour surgery. Not sure what the insurance company ultimately paid. That wasn't including the anesthesiologist and the facility fees.
1. Where are you from?
2. Have you actually LIVED in another country and thus have some personal experience with other systems?
For the record, I lived in Taiwan for years and was enrolled in the NHI (National Health Insurance) and received far better care including surgical procedures than I ever did in the states even with a PPO.
Let's see what the Canadian Medical Association survey says.
https://www.cma.ca/our-focus/public-and-private-health-care/...
Also this survey dates back to 2023, post pandemic, a time when wait times were longer than usual.
Also, the wait time in OUR system sucks too. Try to find a psychiatrist that isn't booked like 3 months in advance. (AI isn't helping with the number of people that need psychiatric services..)
How isn't AI helping? I don't know what the balance is, but it's there at 2am when you're in crisis in a way that your therapist isn't.