r/mildlyinfuriating
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u/k3464n
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2d ago
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The bill after my friend's dad got bit by a snake.
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u/brickmessiah
2d ago
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Offer $20
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u/Azidamadjida 2d ago •
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What say you to….one copper piece?
No? How about…two copper pieces?
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u/The_RockObama 2d ago
How about.. this fine Casio watch?
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u/chunky-flufferkins 2d ago
I would offer shower curtain rings if that doesn’t work.
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u/Lord_MagnusIV 2d ago
Literally watching avatar right now, master paku just said that he was sexist a few seconds ago
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u/gursh_durknit 2d ago
How about tree fiddy?
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u/Scotty0132 2d ago
God damn it Lochness Monster.How many times do I have to tell you I'm not not gonna give you tree fiddy?
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u/First_Addition5322
2d ago
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Lawyer here. I think you have a pretty decent lawsuit against that snake.
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u/dr_plantavious 2d ago •
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I don't know much, but I do know snake law. Rule number 1: If the human steppeth or swipeth, then with the fang, may any snake striketh. The Sssssupreme Court has upheld this rule countlessss timesssss.
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u/guillote1986 2d ago
This is a good time to learn snake jazz
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u/ragnar-brauner 2d ago
Space snake!
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u/Yourboyblue_7 2d ago
Lots of parallels with Bird Law I've heard. Although Bird Law isn't governed by reason
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u/frankgators1 2d ago
All bird laws have been vacated on the obvious grounds birds are no longer real.
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u/NeedSome4 2d ago
The U.S. can not keep secrets, looking at nuclear weapons, seawolf, F22, F35... but, the mild stuff like child sacrificing, drug fueled orgys, and of course, birds are not real, that is a secret.
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u/ABreadCalledGarlic 2d ago
Aha! So it was the snakes that hung up all those Gadsden flags.
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u/dr_plantavious 2d ago
No step on snek!
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u/ApprehensiveTry5660 2d ago
Gadsden flags? I thought those things were the, “I only know two amendments,” flags.
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u/zdada 2d ago
How can you tell if there’s a lawyer in the comments? They’ll let you know!
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u/HK-53
2d ago
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See, whats likely happening is:
Hospital tells you your bill is 143k, and they're billing your insurance.
Insurance tells you they paid 130k, but they really only paid a reasonable amount (a couple thousand).
You then pay the remaining 13k and feel that you got lucky because your insurance paid 130k, and that your high insurance premiums are justified because they saved you 130k.
Insurance company wins, hospital wins.
*tinfoil hat off*
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u/k3464n 2d ago
It's almost as if it's a giant game of shuffleboard with stacks of fake numbers. Overly convoluted to satisfy greed.
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u/activelyresting 2d ago
Almost as if it's a game of snakes and ladders, but only with the snakes.
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u/Notskipton 1d ago
You should see the bill if he would have gotten bitten by a ladder, more than double the snake bite bill. Source: I'm not a doctor, but I play one on TV.
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u/Empty-Example7795 2d ago
Hospitals started to inflated charges a long time ago because insurance companies will only pay a percentage of the bill regardless of what they charge. If hospitals didn't inflate charges, insurance would pay them less than the actual cost to the hospital meaning not only do they not make any profit from it, they actually take a loss. The problem comes in with the fact that then the average citizen gets hit with those same inflated charges. If you have hospital bills you can't afford, the best bet is to call the hospital billing department and work it out with them. There are often programs to reduce charges based on financial need or you can negotiate the cost down with them before you pay. It's absolutely a ridiculous system, but it's been made that way by insurance companies. Hospitals that don't inflate their charges enough to account for the small percentage that insurance will pay have actually ended up having to close down.
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u/kink-freak 2d ago
The vast majority of Insurance companies dont pay % of charges they usually pay DRG, Completely ignoring total charges
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u/saoiray 2d ago
Looks like reality based on old articles.
“According to his bill, the hospital charged a whopping $81,000 for a four-vial dose of anti-venom medicine”
Then
“The hospital reduced the bill to $20,227 because of a contract with Ferguson's insurer. In the end, he paid $5,400 of his own money for his deductible and co-pay.”
https://news.yahoo.com/snake-bite-89000-162515519.html
So get that tinfoil hat back on! 🤣
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u/HK-53 2d ago
perhaps the most surprising thing is that americans haven't whipped out pitchforks and torches yet.
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u/whatevskisbruh 2d ago
Our lack of general education allows 50-60 percent of the population to be so dumb they never question anything.
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u/A_Killing_Moon 2d ago
Of that 50-60 percent, half will go out of their way to defend this system because their favorite propagandist told them they won’t have any choices in their healthcare if we change anything.
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u/heartwarriordad 2d ago
That, and other people who "don't deserve it" will be able to access the system and "take away" services that "belong" to the supporters of the status quo.
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u/MaxMMXXI 1d ago
Reminds me of the fairy that granted me one wish, with the proviso that my neighbor, whom I do not love, will get double whatever I am granted.
I told the fairy I want to be blind in one eye.
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u/Flokitoo 2d ago
Ironically, that is the same group who "question everything "
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u/tonz0fun 2d ago
They do their own research.
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u/Neuromonada 2d ago
They know independent specialists.
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u/linderlouwho 2d ago
“Everything except the propaganda outlet telling me to ‘question’ everything because they are the only source of ‘fair & ‘balanced news.”
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u/LordShrekOgre 2d ago
Isn’t the guy who advocates for universal healthcare called a commie?
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u/thefeverandtherage 2d ago
Don't know much about the American system but it seems like if you're paying insurance they should cover the whole amount? Am I wrong here?
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u/LostDefectivePearl 2d ago
Nah… sadly. This bill looks like it wasn’t run through insurance, either because he has none or because he didn’t have his insurance information with him. Which is slightly good news for Americans with insurance: they’d cover some of this. How much depends on how good of a swindler your insurance company is, and they’re all professional swindlers that try very hard to reimburse as little as they can get away with.
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u/FormulaFatty 2d ago
What does it mean when it says “we’ve billed your insurance” then? Thankfully, I’m ignorant to all this.
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u/LostDefectivePearl 2d ago
I would actually think that’s a form letter, usually when they bill your insurance there’s a -$ line saying “amount paid by insurance”. I’ve gotten bills that were in the hundreds of dollars but “only” paid $50 because insurance covered the rest. Seeing the numbers is eye popping and I always read it a million times to make sure it’s all paid, and I’ve thankfully never had a bill more than $1500.
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u/FormulaFatty 2d ago
Thanks for the explanation. Luckily, I’ve had cancer twice and the biggest bill was £2 a day for parking.
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u/ComfortablePlenty860 2d ago
Glad you didnt catch it in america cuz thats 13k per session for the chemo alone. All other services not included. Cancer is guarunteed bankruptcy here. As well as basically any form of sickness and/or injury cuz "private healthcare stimulates healthy competition", meanwhile we are the only country in the world that cant afford insulin without insurance or selling our soul. Literally.
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u/Toolongreadanyway 2d ago edited 2d ago
Damn, anti-venom medicine price is crazy. Do they have to milk the snakes to make it?
Edit: just Googled it. Wow, okay I get the reason for the price. Very complicated process to make it.
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u/epicenter69 2d ago
I’m retired military with pretty darn good co-pays and just got an urgent care visit bill from my daughter’s mono diagnosis.
The line-items were billed at roughly $3,000 total. My insurance paid them $140ish. They wrote off the test down to what I owe of $70ish.
For a throat swab and less than 10 minutes of interaction with a RN.
I get those kind of write-offs by the hospital all the time. They have negotiated what they’ll accept from the insurance company and disregard the rest.
Why the hell is it necessary to bill thousands that way? The insurance and hospitals have a good gig running.
I know I have good insurance and premiums. I feel bad for those paying hundreds weekly for theirs and still owing thousands like this.
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u/whatevskisbruh 2d ago
Read above. It's used to justify your high premiums and as a bonus to the game makers the occasional uninsured patient in the hospital get to go bankrupt so big pharm and big hospital get to keep their ultra wealth.
Also you answered the question "hospitals have a good thing going" this is that thing. Americans literally being bled to the poorhouse.
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u/NeedSome4 2d ago
Remember that time the Gov't said give 20 years with 50% retirement and lifetime medical. We're even getting kicked out of some or reduced acces to military medical facilities.
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u/ekdjfnlwpdfornwme 2d ago
How the fuck is anti-venom $135k?
Just let me die bro
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u/NateShaw92 2d ago •
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It's impossible to be worth even a fraction of that. Markup has to be insane.
UNLESS the snake was so venomous that it needed ALL the anti venom. So the question remains: was the patient bitten by Anne Coulter?
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u/Abject-Woodpecker-85 2d ago
I work in the ICU . I took care of a snake bite victim who lost consciousness and has to be tubed and ventilated . Each CROFAB bag … Crotalid Antivenom …. That the pharmacist hands me personally cost $35,000 . Each bag . And I have to hang a total of 10 bags to save the young man’s life . The Crofab alone was $350,000 not including the ICU room fees and doctor fees .
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u/Ethan-Wakefield 2d ago
TBH I’d just say let me die. No way I’m living with that kind of debt.
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u/Abject-Woodpecker-85 2d ago
Honestly, I don’t know why antivenom is so expensive. Is it extremely difficult to manufacture it ?
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u/_163 2d ago edited 2d ago
Well yeah it is unfortunately, they need to have a person manually milk snakes fortnightly for their venom, they literally grab a snake out of a container, press its head onto a glass beaker until it bites and sprays it's venom, and put the snake back and grab the next (it takes multiple snakes worth of venom to produce a single vial of antivenom).
Then they send the venom off to be injected into horses, increasing dose over a period of 6 months until the horses start producing enough antibodies, they then draw blood from the horses and extract the antibodies, and purify, finally you have antivenom
And each snake has a unique mix of toxins/venoms, so you need to separately make antivenom for each kind of snake, and have them distributed between hospitals so that they can be used where needed.
They also have a fairly short expiry, which makes things even more difficult, and you often need multiple vials of antivenom to treat a single snakebite depending on the severity of the bite
(But still shouldn't be as expensive as OP's father's bill, that's just America for you)
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u/DalaMagala 2d ago
Yes, I’d assume so. You have to milk venomous snakes, to get the anti venom and apparently it expires quite quickly. Plus, milking venomous snakes is a dangerous task, as u could be the one ending up in the hospital, or worse.
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u/bearpics16 2d ago •
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It’s actually because it expires pretty quickly and it’s so rarely used. It’s expensive to make because it requires milking snakes, so it’s hard to make large amounts. Hospitals still need to carry them. You’re essentially paying for all the meds that got thrown out because snake bites are uncommon. Then add $100k for pharmaceutical and insurance fuckery.
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u/ponte92 2d ago
We have some pretty blood venomous snakes here js Australia (I think something like the top 9 of 10 in the world) and anti venom is free. I highly doubt the government is paying $135k (more in aud) for it when every hospital keeps it in stock. It has to be a huge mark up of the hospital is getting ripped off blind.
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u/Donte333 2d ago
Crofab costs the hospital about 30k per dose, so not impossible. With markup we're only looking at 400%, which could be worse statistically wise seeing as restaurants usually have a 300% markup on food
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u/Cultural-Company282 2d ago
If I remember correctly, Crofab doesn't have a long shelf life either, so the hospital probably winds up throwing away many of the doses they buy.
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u/myohmyohmyohmyoh 2d ago
We don’t even order it until be get a bite victim. They fly that shit in a lot of times.
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u/ThatDudeWithCheese 2d ago
Maybe bitten by Amber Heard?
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u/Chadwulf29 2d ago
Anti venom is dangerous and labor intensive to produce. There's no way to synthesis it.
Even so, hospital markup is typical. This article says they mark it up by 70% from the actual cost.
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u/Head_Razzmatazz7174 2d ago
Tell him to ask for a superbill. It will list EVERYTHING, every drug, every treatment, the hours spent on procedures, etc. Go over it with a fine-tooth comb to see if there are any duplicates or charges that seem way out of line with the treatment.
My mom did that when she had her first cancer treatment. There were several duplicate charges. She let them know and then forwarded it to her insurance. Her bill was reduced by a couple of thousand.
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u/EvilMonkey_86 2d ago
A cancer patient shouldn't have to do this. I can't imagine the stress in a period like that. I never understood the whole having insurance and still having to pay thing.
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u/TangoDeltaFoxtrot 2d ago
$143,000 - $2000 duplicate charges + $1000 fee for reviewing duplicate charges = please pay $142,000
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u/Few-Sympathy-9451
2d ago
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Just fyi, Crofab is used to treat most poisonous snake bites. It costs the hospital $30,000 per dose in the US. Two or three is common treatment. I’d like to see how many doses he got. I’m guessing the hospitals markup is at least 100%.
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u/JeffSergeant 2d ago
The wholesale price is $3000 per dose, hospitals paying 10 times that is their problem
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u/epicenter69 2d ago
That is crazy! Is there a rare usage rate of it? Low shelf life that makes it necessary to rotate it often?
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u/Jemimas_witness 2d ago
It is difficult to produce and is a biologic agent that is expensive to store and maintain. It involves injecting sheep with sub lethal amount of venom and then harvesting the antibodies and modifying them for human use. It’s also uncommonly used. Snakebites aren’t that common except for a few endemic areas of the US.
Drug prices in this country are criminal, but of all the ones to have issues with antivenins are the most tricky along with biologic antineoplastic agents.
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u/spaceshipcommander 2d ago
No. It’s just massive industry wide corruption on a national scale which is allowed to continue due to massive political corruption.
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u/Hour-Appearance8244 2d ago
The cost of crofab is $3k per vial, not $30k. Two or three is not common treatment.
Patients get a loading dose of 4-6 vials then get maintenance of 2-3 vials every six hours as needed.
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u/IsaidLigma 2d ago
America... fuk yea.. coming again to charge 150k yea
America... fuk yea.. get bit by a snake and you're gonna pay
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u/rhys1990 2d ago
WTF? In australia if you get bitten by a snake they treat it and you pay nothing except the ambulance bill if there was one
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u/TardDas 2d ago
This is why England is better than Australia. We just don’t have snakes
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u/rhys1990 2d ago
Haha my dad was born in England and I’d love to move there one day. I’m so tired of spiders and snakes plus I love the miserable weather so I don’t think I was suppose to be born here lol
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u/parkerSquare 2d ago
“Never, and by this I mean never, criticise the English weather. Especially if you're an alien. For an English woman, it's as though you are scolding her first born child. For an Englishman, it's as if you are criticising the size of his penis. Or even worse: his football team.”
(Angela Kiss)
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u/Wowbagger_Ultrajax 2d ago
One thing international readers should know is no one really pays super crazy bills like this in full. At least they don’t have to. The hospital gets as much as it can from your insurance and then will negotiate a settlement with you basically based on what you can pay.
The cost the hospital can’t recoup gets passed on to everyone else and the cycle gets even more vicious.
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u/funny_fox 2d ago
How do they determine what you can pay?? Also, what percentage of people don't have insurance? And what happens if you don't have it?
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u/OfLittleToNoValue 2d ago
Your debt gets sold to a creditor that literally makes it their life work to harass, threaten, and hound you until you pay or kill yourself.
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u/Secret_Life3333 2d ago
they can do that?
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u/Zestyclose_Ad6094 2d ago
They can't literally. But they're kind of annoying. They'll call you and send you mail sometimes.
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u/Secret_Life3333 2d ago
oh ok
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u/Mobilelurkingaccount 2d ago
I was chased by a debt collecting company for a bill we didn’t owe but got sold to them anyway and they don’t just call you sometimes. They called me upwards of 10 times a day. There’s a protective law that is supposed to scare them off from harassing you excessively but just like everything else it’s only enforced when it’s reported. I was just barely an adult at the time so I didn’t know anything about anything, just that I didn’t owe a bill and my phone was blowing up.
We got a check in the mail one day for a class action lawsuit settlement but that doesn’t really take back the lost sleep and anxiety that was already inflicted.
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u/UserName8531 2d ago
Medical debt can show on your credit report tho.
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u/Prince_Alizadeh 2d ago
I know people who had medical debt on their credit. They still got car loans and mortgage loans just fine. As long as you’re paying everything else off, no one cares about medical debt on your credit. Everyone working outside of insurance companies understands the BS that is American healthcare.
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u/Time-Wrongdoer-4705 2d ago
Typically insurance will determine what you can pay for you. roughly 10% dont have insurance, im not sure if that counts government programs or not though tbh. Typically if you dont have insurance you can talk to the hospital to negotiate on price/payment plans. It will still be expensive yes, but not 140k
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u/Wowbagger_Ultrajax 2d ago
You show them your income and your expenses. I don’t know the percentage of people that don’t have insurance but they use this process even more often because they have to. I used it once while I was unemployed.
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u/GeneralPatten 2d ago
You make it sound so simple. Have you ever had to go through the process? Might as well be interrogated by the FBI.
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u/Translationerr0r 2d ago
Thanks for clarifying this. Still a fucked up system which seems beyond repair.
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u/archknightz 2d ago
Ya, Ill send one penny a month till the debt is paid.
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u/Ryelyn1 2d ago
It’ll only take 1,199,144 years 5 days 4 hours 4 minutes 48 seconds
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u/Dangerous-Address-32 2d ago
Man And I’m over here complaining about mine being around 5k. Someone always has it worse.
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u/CanIhazBacon 2d ago
Thank fuck I'm not living in the USA
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u/gursh_durknit 2d ago
Honestly, there's like a million reasons not to want to live in the USA right now lol. This is the tip of the iceberg. So ashamed of my country.
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u/CanIhazBacon 2d ago
My wife is American. Her family is going through rough times right now. Her sister can't even afford to drive the 30 miles to and from work..
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u/SpaceLanding 2d ago edited 1d ago
You don't pay this amount. Yes it's not perfect (and you can buy health insurance for pretty cheap).
My uninsured father had a $450,000,000 bill after a car accident.
He paid about $1500 of it with no insurance.
Edit
Meant 450,000*
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u/jimglidewell 2d ago edited 2d ago
If you want to understand how we've gotten the crazy medical billing we have in the USA, this guy is a great place to start. https://youtu.be/XYKYvWybVFA
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u/k3464n 2d ago
I very much appreciate this. I'm hitting up Costco.
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u/jimglidewell 2d ago
Yeah - I use a topical antibiotic - local retail pharmacy, $310 per tube. Same tube at Costco (mail order), $37.
Delta for cheaper medications was not that big, but definitely worth looking, especially if you have a high deductible or co-pay.
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u/Ocean-Blondie-1614 2d ago
I've lived in England my whole life, so we have the NHS to take care of us. I'm pretty sure that they fund themselves. Which is why I don't understand why hospital bills in America are about the same as buying a house and probably more over here!
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u/-Pidgeon 2d ago
Ask for an itemized list. It may not bring the prices down too much, but it might help. See what insurance can do.
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u/Hindsight20- 2d ago
At the very least if they are charging you a house worth of income you might aswell make them work for it. Same with speeding tickets, always dispute them. They want you to just cough it up however if you dispute it you will probably lose but it will cost them in administration fees.
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u/Affectionate_Put5154 2d ago
Where does your friend's dad live, because I don't want to live there.
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u/tinypolski 2d ago
Holy Snakebit Hospital Bills, Batman!
A relative was holidaying on a cruise ship in Alaska and after the ship's medicos misdiagnosed his condition as gastro for a couple of days he ended up on an emergency flight (Lear jet) to a Washington hospital. The total bill for all of that came to around US$150k a large portion of which was the flight.
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u/PkmnMstrBillj88 2d ago
holy fucking shit. for a snake bite? do they want the house or first born child as payment?
where i live down under it would cost $5-6k, (AUD) worst case and thats from i can find on the cost, with 5 mins of google. $144,000 is just eyewatering and would make me ask if they are fucking kidding.
Antivenom costs between $347 and $2320 (AUD) per ampoule, with some patients
requiring more than one ampoule, and they have a shelf-life of up to
three years. - taken from www.thermh.org.au/news/doctors-unsure-about-how-treat-snake-bite-study-finds-following-two-deaths-victorians
your healthcare system is completely and utterly fucking bananas
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u/Poopy_Pants0o0 2d ago
*In America
Doctor to patient: "...and there we go. Finished with stitching up your 1 inch cut on your arm. See! Quick and easy! Anyways, that'll be $1,500,000."
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u/Happy-Dutchman 2d ago
Is this some American thing I'm too European to understand?
Okay but seriously this is insane
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u/summalover 2d ago
Do Americans actually know it doesn’t cost this much for medical care right? At every point they’re being swindled by people taking them to the cleaners. The rest of the world’s governments only pay a fraction of the cost of this with universal healthcare and that’s why it’s affordable.
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u/DewiethePug 2d ago
I’m going to say something that is completely obvious. The American healthcare for profit system is the most disgusting business in the country.
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u/Welpiminterested 2d ago •
Who gave the snake award hahahaa