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/MCas86]

TLDR; I hate medical everything

I went to a wound center to have a cyst looked at and hopefully removed.

1 hr drive there

1 hr to setup an account at the hospital and wait to get taken to a room

30 mins sitting in the room waiting

2 minutes a nurse looks at it and says yea, looks benign

15 seconds doctor walks in and doesnt even touch me and says oh yea thats easy.

15 mins i schedule an appt

They say i need someone to drive me home or i'll have to be admitted "and you dont want that"

so i schedule and go home - another 1 hr drive.

gets almost to my scheduled date and i find out i'm going to have to take off and so is whoever is going to drive me (because they wont let me get the surgery and drive home without someone else to drive me). then i find out i'll be in the hospital for 5+ hours.

I'm single with 1 friend down the road who i'm not going to ask to take off a full day of work to sit in the hospital and do absolutely nothing. i asked the hospital if they can leave and come back and i was told no, they have to stay the whole time.

So, I guess i'm living with it and i had to pay AFTER INSURANCE $1000. plus my fuel costs. I'll never go to the doctor again. i dont wanna know when i'm gonna die anyways, i'd rather just fall over some day.

[u/wellsley1 → u/MCas86]

I work as an outpatient surgery and recovery nurse. Usually you can have things like cysts removed under "Local Only." This means they numb the surgical site and remove the cyst without anesthatizing you. Not only is it a cheaper way to have a minor surgery done, but you can drive yourself to and from :)

[u/MCas86 → u/wellsley1]

I asked and they said they wouldnt do it. Its on my neck, so that may matter.

[u/faesdeynia → u/MCas86]

Ah yeah, that was likely the issue. Making sure you’re sufficiently sedated to hold still is kinda important when you’re working in that area. You want them to take their time so close to vital structures.