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Medicine is the modern mob
Re All bad things come to an end
None of the following will surprise you, Doc, but in case it's helpful to others I'd like to relate my last emergency room experience (which I pray will truly be my last ER visit).
After about two hours (though there were only a few other people waiting) I got about fifteen minutes of medical attention. I wasn't given a CT scan like you were, but I was put through
several other expensive tests which, upon recovery and research later, had nothing whatsoever to do with any of my symptoms. Basically, they gouged me with extras like a sucker at a Chevy dealer.
I learned a year later that I had gallstones, and my symptoms in the ER that night were utterly classic. But nobody suggested gallstones to me that
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I had (and still have) no insurance, and I was naïvely expecting to pay hundreds, perhaps more than a thousand dollars for that ER visit.
Instead the multiple bills added up to more than $7,500.
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night. The doctor acted as if my symptoms had him mystified, and "prescribed" that I take Tums for my stomach pain. I later read that the main ingredient in Tums, calcium carbonate, can actually contribute to forming gallstones.
I had (and still have) no insurance, and I was naïvely expecting to pay hundreds, perhaps more than a thousand dollars for that ER visit,. Instead the multiple bills added up to more than $7,500. The inarguably unnecessary tests amounted to about ten percent of the total. I have been paying $100 a month ever since, which is an enormous strain on my budget. A later doctor told me I need to have surgery for the gallstones, but I can't possibly afford it, and instead I'm taking an herbal supplement, dandelion and milk thistle, that's supposed to break down gallstones. It's been about four years, the stones seem to be getting better, and the useless ER bill is more than half paid off. The hospital wants me to believe that they gave me a great deal by not charging interest, and maybe they're right about that. I get pissed off just thinking about it.
I will say: I hate that hospital, I would never return unless I was on my deathbed, and in my opinion American medicine is a synonym for organized crime.
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The particulars were different, but I had a remarkably similar un-insured Emergency Room experience, right down to an obvious but missed diagnosis, several expensive tests that had no relation to my symptoms, a long wait (two hours, though there appeared to be no other patients in the ER), and a doctor who seemed bewildered by the practice of medicine. My story had a happier ending, though.
I was grossly overcharged for utterly commonplace items (the line I remember from the bill was $16 for four Tylenol with codeine) and my unnecessary tests were more than yours, closer to 20% of the total. All of which convinced me that I was dealing with criminals and racketeers, and thus under no moral obligation to pay.
I agree with you: these people are criminals. And I am very much willing to cooperate with robbers, but first I need to see the gun. The hospital was unarmed, so I decided not to cooperate with their stick-up.
I explained this to the hospital's billing department, and some months later explained it again to a collection agent. Then we declared bankruptcy. The only aspect of the memory which pleases me, years later, is that we paid the hospital not one dime.
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