US Hospital Treatment?

spiddy100

Thanks GwylimT - and eek at your story! Hope your ankle is OK these days.


f4phixeruk, do you mean something like Denplan? I'm not a member unfortunately as I have an NHS dentist here at home.


Stoneman, thanks for that. I would settle for 25%. I still wouldn't have stayed at the hospital if I knew it would cost me $250 and not fix my problem, but I can see that $250 might be a reasonable price to put on the time of the personnel who saw me and the provision of the facilities. I'm hoping that my insurance company may help me with negotiating the price down.

InsideInsurance

spiddy100 wrote: »

It just makes me so angry (and worried about paying the $1000). I went to the hospital to ask their advice and they told me to stay and be seen by someone. If they'd said "We don't have a dentist here but we can write you a prescription for painkillers. It will cost you $1000", I would have run a mile.

You have to remember that in the USA these are not state run facilities but mainly private companies who's job it is to make profit for its shareholders.

To a lesser degree they also tend to be relatively small companies, in comparison to the NHS, and so dont have the buying power to drive down costs. Finally the rate of suing doctors and damages awarded are much higher so they are both more cautious (ie do many more diagnostic tests) and have higher insurances etc to pay which all reflect back in the charges they apply.

An relative in her 70s had a simple trip on the stairs and suspected sprained/ fractured wrist as a result. They just wanted a taxi to the hospital to get an xray to confirm if it was broken or not but the hotel insisted on an ambulance and the hospital wouldnt just x-ray the wrist but did a full body scan just in case she'd broken or ruptured anything else. Turned out it was just a sprain which she was told to take over the counter medicine for and put in a tubular bandage. Insurers bill was in the 5 figures.

spiddy100

InsideInsurance wrote: »

You have to remember that in the USA these are not state run facilities but mainly private companies who's job it is to make profit for its shareholders.

Thanks. Maybe stupidly, I hadn't realised that. I knew that there is no free healthcare and that it is all paid through insurance but hadn't realised that the state doesn't run hospitals.

InsideInsurance

spiddy100 wrote: »

Thanks. Maybe stupidly, I hadn't realised that. I knew that there is no free healthcare and that it is all paid through insurance but hadn't realised that the state doesn't run hospitals.

It varies by state but only about 18% of hospitals are public nationally.

Many are community hospitals which are non-governmental owned but are "non profit". I "" because they are normally associated with other activities like medical schools or research and they cross fund through the revenues generated by the hospital side. Of cause some of their hospital CEOs are on $3m salaries so slightly above our hospital administrators too

Voyager2002

Since you asked for but did not receive dental treatment, you would be morally justified in refusing to pay anything at all. I suggest you ask in a US forum (as kindly indicated above whether the USA has anything corresponding to our restrictions on mis-selling.

Your friend in the USA could deny knowing anything about you, so is unlikely to be adversely affected by this. However, there are ways in which debts from the USA can be pursued here.

InsideInsurance

Voyager2002 wrote: »

Since you asked for but did not receive dental treatment, you would be morally justified in refusing to pay anything at all.

But they were prescribed medication (2 painkillers and 1 antibiotic). Whilst they didnt fix the problem they did assist with the pain management and preventing it worsening whilst expert treatment was sort.

Agree $1k in UK terms would be silly money to pay for a private doctor to prescribe 3 drugs but we arent talking the UK

Doshwaster

An American doctor's experience of NHS emergency care:
http://drjengunter.wordpress.com/2014/08/12/an-american-doctor-experiences-an-nhs-emergency-room/

The NHS really is missing out on a lot income if it doesn't bother billing visitors to this country, especially when they have insurance and are willing to pay. It's as if the hospitals aren't set up to have someone to do the paperwork.

Archergirl

My aunt from SA had doctors treatment here and pills from the chemist, no charge, this is why the NHS is in trouble, she also offered to pay but the surgery didn't know how to collect the payment..............

InsideInsurance

Archergirl wrote: »

My aunt from SA had doctors treatment here and pills from the chemist, no charge, this is why the NHS is in trouble, she also offered to pay but the surgery didn't know how to collect the payment..............

The NHS is very poor at billing those that should have free treatment but it really isnt the cause of the problems. Even the most pessimistic estimations of the miss billing is tiny in comparison to the NHS' shortfalls.

Personally, I'd much rather a system that treats first and deals with payment second than one that turns away people in need because they dont have sufficient credit limit on their credit card in case they arent entitled to free treatment.

Archergirl

So would I, but even some people in hospital that have to have interpretors do not pay.