I nearly DIED from rotavirus as a baby. Lost a good chunk of my body weight in nothing flat which is super serious when you’re talking about an infant that’s less than a year old. When my oldest was a baby and the nurse said there’s a rotavirus vaccine now and she’s going to get it, I cried THE HAPPIEST OF TEARS.
This is fucking sick. Fuck capitalism and fuck private healthcare. This system is so disgusting. Vote for Bernie Sanders we need Medicare for All.
[Video transcript start: “Alright, y’all like the desk shit, and I’ve got plenty of it. So here’s another scenario: you go to the emergency room, you get a bill for a thousand dollars. The very first thing you do, other than calling and asking for a ‘review of the level of care,’ that’s the first thing you do. While on the phone, while they’re doing that, you also say, ‘I want an itemized bill with every single charge.’
“Now what they’re going to do on the back end of that–because they don’t want you to know that they’ve charged you thirty-seven dollars for a fucking band-aid–they’re going to take that thirty-seven dollar charge right off of there. Before they send you the itemized statement, any of those stupid charges? They’re gonna take them right off. Generally, my bills go from a thousand dollars to seven-hundred and fifty, they take about two-hundred dollars off just for stupid shit. All you have to do is ask for an itemized bill with every charge, and they’re gonna take those charges off, ‘cause they don’t want you to know that they’re charging you thirty-seven dollars for a fucking band-aid, and guess what? That’s how much they charge for a fucking band-aid. So, when you actually can say, ‘You charged me thirty-seven dollars for a band-aid?’ They don’t like that. So they remove-” Audio cuts off mid-sentence and ends.]
Wish I would have known this when I had to go to the hospital a couple years ago. Over 500 dollar bill for a band aid & antibiotic cream that I put on myself
Dont let them screw you.
You can also write a Letter of Hardship if you’re in financial distress and they’ll reduce the bill drastically. I had a $2.5K ER bill, wrote to the billing department saying I’m unmarried, unemployed, and uninsured, and they knocked it down to $125.
That’s not a typo. $125.
I just went from $975 to $225 thanks to this post.
Alright, let me add a couple of things to this for y'all. Bare with me, it’ll be worth it.
So, I have a chronic autoimmune disease and I constantly am shelling out money to doctors, hospitals, and on meds. Part of my paycheck every 2 weeks is going to some type of health related thing.
Now 2 years ago I had a flare up that was so bad it caused me to have a massive panic attack at work and my body bbasically shut down on me. Like after the involuntary screaming stopped, my body went limp, my eyes shut, and I could talk. I didn’t pass out, I was very aware of what was being said around me, I just couldn’t respond. Now, my manager at the time called 911 and the squad arrived. By this point I was able to open my eyes again and they sat me in the chair lift thing and asked me questions. I tried my best to respond but my words were incredibly slurred. They wanted to take me to the hospital. I did not want to go. Because my first thought was,
“I can’t afford that bill”.
But they insisted I go because I “passed out” and my manager was saying shit like I stopped breathing and whatnot even though I hadn’t. I tried to argue with them through the state I was in that I did not want to go. But I lost, and therefore was transported to the hospital via ambulance.
When I got there I had to deal with all the questions and stuff and run through my medical history and all medications I’m on and what lead me to being in the hospital that day. This included hooking me up to an IV and taking blood and stuff. At the end of it all do you know what they diagnosed me with?
Exhaustion.
They told me I overworked myself and that I needed to sleep more and take better care of myself. They told me I was EXHAUSTED. SOMETHING I ALREADY FUCKING KNEW I WAS. But here’s the thing, I work at least 4p hrs a week as a supervisor in a customer service driven place. I do not get paid time off, I do not vacation days, sick pay, overtime, or holiday pay. So I can’t afford to take a day off to take care of myself, because this vicious cycle is killing me.
You wanna know how much my bill from the hospital was? $750. SEVEN HUNDRED FIFTY DOLLARS TO TELL ME SOMETHING I ALREADY KNEW ABOUT MYSELF.
I did not pay $750 to the hospital but I’ll get to that down below.
Now I say all this to make a few points here.
You can say no to the ambulance. No one can force you to go. If you are not actively dying, you can refuse it. Now, this does not mean you shouldn’t still go. But you have options, if you are safe enough and in a place where you can, drive yourself. Park in the ER section and walk your ass in and check in. Call a friend, call a reliable friend that can come and take you. Call an Uber or Lyft, you’ll still have to pay the driver but it’ll be cheaper than the ambulance.
Know your body. If you have a condition or if you know what you feel like when your sick with a cold or have an attack or some kind, then speak up and be steadfast in your decision. No one will know your body better than you. If you feel like you don’t need to go to the hospital and that you can manage things on your own then don’t let people push you into financially draining situations when you’re only going to be told what you already know. On the flip side of that, if you know that things are different, worse, or not getting better then do go seek medical attention. But do it on your own terms. Listen to your body.
You can get make payment plans. A lot of offices will let you make payments. My specialty doctors all allow me to pay in small increments every month or so until my bill is paid off. It shows that you’re trying and not skipping out but also isn’t going to break you. Most will even let you choose how much you want to pay. Eye doctor, dentist, orthodontist, Rheumatologist, all of these specialists let me make payments.
This one is the big one to take away. That $750 bill, I put off paying that for 2 years. Now, I got several calls that I never answered from debt collectors but I digress, I didn’t pay it until this month when I got a letter that basically stated if I didn’t pay it in 30 days my credit score was going to take a serious hit. So, here’s what I did, I called them and told them I need to pay. They told me how much and I explained that I just couldn’t afford to pay that much, I was living paycheck to paycheck and that was just too steep for me. They said they would look and see what they could do (yeah keep looking honey, like the lady said take the gold plated bandaid off that list) and they came back with well what if you pay 500. I said I still can’t pay that, they said they’d look again. Came back with, how about $300. I said sold! I went from owing $750 to paying $300. That’s a difference of $450. Now I could’ve probably got them to go down to $200 but I didn’t want to push my luck.
Here’s the thing, they just want their money. And frankly they don’t really care how much they get from you so long as they get something. So fucking haggle your hospital bills kids. If they’re willing to drop $450 off of my bill then clearly they don’t need that much for the service they have just provided me with.
I got dressed up with the intention of taking some awesome hospital glam photos in my GP’s office today, but… Sometimes, it’s just not going to happen.
I had to try on about 10+ different pieces of clothing before I could find an outfit that wasn’t just falling off me thanks to the 25lbs I’ve lost in the past 6 months. Getting dressed and undressed over and over with joints that don’t stay in their sockets, and low blood pressure…
You maybe can’t imagine how that leaves me feeling, but let’s just say it’s not glam. And that’s completely okay. A big lesson that has featured in my life these past few years is learning how to have flexible expectations of myself. How to let go of an idea that may not be possible given my physical limitations in that moment.
I’m still learning. It’s all about experience points and leveling up. There is no level cap in these lessons, just like anyone’s life, sick, disabled, or not.
Being resigned to explain my meltdowns at age 34 after a lifetime because I injured myself to the point that I need an x-ray this time. Before: anxious, running through the scenarios in my head. After: GP was sweet and non-judgmental. She made me laugh to let me know, it’s okay.
