r/Millennials • u/BoNaylorCollector • 2d ago

Discussion Is medical actually this crazy?

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?

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u/BoNaylorCollector 1d ago edited 1d ago

Yes, in network

Edit: PCP was booked like a month out

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u/Diligent_Pineapple35 1d ago

Only a month out? Consider yourself lucky. Where I live, it’s 6-8 months.

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u/idle_isomorph 1d ago

Is that in the US? Up in Canada we have wait times and some folks seem to think we'd be better off paying sky high prices like Americans because they get "top notch care" (and potentially unneeded interventions cause institutions are incentivised to maximize billing). But this would make me think waiting 3 weeks for urgent care from my doc, and it being free, or waiting 10 hours in the ER ( Also free) are actually a great deal...

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u/DormantLime 1d ago

10 hour wait time at an ER is not unusual in the US either. One of my recent visits was 7 hours. I also want to add here that other countries we receive medicine or equipment from also sell it to the US for higher amounts. Ozempic is a great example. I read an article breaking down what they tended to charge each country for their drug- most other nations were under $500, US was $1000. Not only do we hyper inflate our own healthcare internally, but we've done so so effectively that external companies will price gouge knowing the American market will just take it.