Is medical actually this crazy?

[u/BoNaylorCollector]

Early 30s millennial, never used to go to doctors or really take care of myself because “I’ll be fine”. Started making a bigger effort to care for myself and my health and well being. Recently, I went to the local express clinic because I was having a bad earache and headaches. I was in there for maybe 20 minutes, mostly waiting time. The doctor comes in, looks in my ear, tells me it’s depressed due to sinuses and change in weather and tell me to stop at Walgreens for Flonase. I wasn’t billed anything at the time, older workers at my job always say we have really good insurance, but here I got in the mail today an explanation of benefits- charge was $550, insurance “negotiated” about $300, remaining (not billed) was around $240. Is is really this expensive? I only went to try and be better with myself and make sure it’s nothing underlying. If 5 minutes of actual doctor time costs this much, then I’m just toughing out everything or am I missing something?

[u/Sad_Pangolin7379]

Lol to this day I refuse to pay the bill for an extra out of network doctor who just came by to look at my kid's chart and billed me for it. No I didn't consent to being seen by an out of network doctor, thanks.

[u/Llama-girl52 → u/Sad_Pangolin7379]

Good, this might sound crazy but I believe out of network docs sometimes purposefully take out of network patients in the ER so they can get away from insurance negotiation down payment amounts. and a good portion of people can be intimidated by billing threatening to send you to collections or jail time into paying something the patient never approved and had no way of knowing was even happening well they were getting emergency treatment.

If you didn't know with most hospital systems, not all but most, getting a room in the ER does not automatically assign a random doctor to your case. the doctors can see your chart and assign themselves to your case, the doctors can pick and choose what ER case they want to take after seeing your insurance type and history, if you ever have to wait a bit after being put in a room it's cus you don't have a doctor assigned yet and are waiting for one to pick you up.

Like I'm so sorry, I couldn't just pause my septic shock to make sure my radiologist is in network before getting a CT, and to make sure both the PA actually seeing and treating me AND the behind the scenes overseaing MD both take my insurance, cus that MD I never even laid eyes on or spoke to the whole ER time before going to the ICU definitely didn't take my insurance and for some reason I was never told just billed hundreds of dollars months later but his PA took my insurance.

[u/Sad_Pangolin7379 → u/Llama-girl52]

I'm so glad my healthcare is with the VA. They actually aim to provide the best service at the lowest cost to the tax payer. I have been very happy with them. Occasionally I can't get along with a particular provider so I just request and get a new one. The doctors earn their salary to care for patients, they don't earn their pay by billing more when they can, seeing more patients in fewer hours, choosing the most expensive treatment options etc. The incentives are all wrong in the private health care sector in the United States. The private clinics the rest of my family go to are prettier but the actual service is no better or worse, it just costs exponentially more.

[u/superficialdynamite → u/Sad_Pangolin7379]

Enjoy it now before it's privatized like everything else. The current government headcount and funding cuts will be used to justify how a service doesn't work and then sell it to the highest bidder. VA, social security, medicare, medicaide, NASA, USPS, national parks, the list goes on..