Medical Bills... agh

[SDSorority]

Medical bills... agggh. Even with insurance they're so doggone EXPENSIVE!!

Hubby and I are going to a new doctor tomorrow. We'll have to go in for a series of blood tests, which will cost $$$$. But, I guess, if you don't have your health, what DO you have?

I'm also VERY nervous because hubby and I will be going on a new diet that excludes nuts, gluten, vegetable oils, and soy. YIKES

I better be the healthiest person on the planet after this....

 

[disfan07]

I completely understand. We have what would be considered "excellent" insurance thorugh my dads company but we still pay in the 5 figures for OOP every year.

Our insurance year is July 1-July 1 and since our new insurance year started this year (about 5 weeks ago), I have had...
Hepatology appointment (very expensive!)
liver biopsy
ER visit
GI appointment
and an endoscopy coming up

It's great isn't it

 

[amoggio816]

Im on the same boat! James and I are drowning in about 8,000 in medical bills. And yes, there are 3 zeros. Between 3 ER visits, 2 surgeries, possible meningitis a D&C and 5 ultrasounds, and the every 4 month check up for DVT, it adds up quickly. Did I mention all of these in 36 days?

 

[justbishop]

We are right there with you! We had a $6000 personal loan with our credit union that we've been working on from when our DD was born and had to be NICU'd for 4 days (nothing serious and no lasting effects, just a bit of fluid in her lungs). That's not counting the roughly $2k we tossed at it from tax refunds, and the $1200 we financed through a medical finance co at a crazy low 3% interest. And we have "good" insurance!

DD is now 2, we are still paying diligently on her birth bills, and the DH has an emergency appendectomy on Mother's Day this year. We had to go back to our CU and "top off" our personal loan to get $3k to pay for THAT bill, so all of the progress we'd made on paying down the birth bills for the past 2 years pretty much just went down the toilet.

I think it's ridiculous that we as a country can't agree on universal health care. It seems like the poor are taken care of and the rich (who can afford to be "self insured") take care of themselves, but the middle class are getting eaten alive by insurance premiums and copays, and yet still having to go into debt and pay huge (for US anyway) chunks of cash OOP when something does happen. It makes no sense!

 

[disfan07]

We are right there with you! We had a $6000 personal loan with our credit union that we've been working on from when our DD was born and had to be NICU'd for 4 days (nothing serious and no lasting effects, just a bit of fluid in her lungs). That's not counting the roughly $2k we tossed at it from tax refunds, and the $1200 we financed through a medical finance co at a crazy low 3% interest. And we have "good" insurance!

DD is now 2, we are still paying diligently on her birth bills, and the DH has an emergency appendectomy on Mother's Day this year. We had to go back to our CU and "top off" our personal loan to get $3k to pay for THAT bill, so all of the progress we'd made on paying down the birth bills for the past 2 years pretty much just went down the toilet.

I think it's ridiculous that we as a country can't agree on universal health care. It seems like the poor are taken care of and the rich (who can afford to be "self insured") take care of themselves, but the middle class are getting eaten alive by insurance premiums and copays, and yet still having to go into debt and pay huge (for US anyway) chunks of cash OOP when something does happen. It makes no sense!

And what is even worse is the fact that people who need the insraunce the most, the ones who are already sick or have a chronic condition, are routinely denied any private insruance becasue the companies don't want to cover them.

I am one of those. I wouldn't even be offered insruance at a higher premium. I would be flat out denied privately. The insurance companies practice blatant discrimination everyday by doing this and people seem to turn a blind eye and allow it to continue. Luckily, in 2014, they won't be allowed to anymore.

 

[Princesca]

Part of the problem is that there should be no insurance for routine care, IMHO. Having insurance drives the price up for things because the insurers pay them. Look at LASIK, for example. Traditionally elective and therefore not covered by insurance. Where has the price gone on it, over the past decade? Waaaaay down. When people have to pay out of pocket, medical providers are forced to lower prices. But because insurers pay a big part of the cost, we don't often even know what the bill is, and we just think, "Well, it could be worse, I could be paying alllll that, not just my part." So in a kinda sick way, sometimes we're grateful.

We don't get fire insurance to cover the time we drop candle wax on the sofa and burn a hole in the cushion, or to cover oil changes on a car. Insurance should be to protect people from catastrophic events. Having insurers involved in routine care drives up costs for services, but also drives up the risk pool within the insurer.

 

[Jeff_G]

Part of the problem is that there should be no insurance for routine care, IMHO. Having insurance drives the price up for things because the insurers pay them. Look at LASIK, for example. Traditionally elective and therefore not covered by insurance. Where has the price gone on it, over the past decade? Waaaaay down. When people have to pay out of pocket, medical providers are forced to lower prices. But because insurers pay a big part of the cost, we don't often even know what the bill is, and we just think, "Well, it could be worse, I could be paying alllll that, not just my part." So in a kinda sick way, sometimes we're grateful.

We don't get fire insurance to cover the time we drop candle wax on the sofa and burn a hole in the cushion, or to cover oil changes on a car. Insurance should be to protect people from catastrophic events. Having insurers involved in routine care drives up costs for services, but also drives up the risk pool within the insurer.

I totally agree with this, also by purchasing insurance through your employer you do not know what the true cost of your insurance is. I never really know how much my employer is putting it. We should shop for medical insurance on the open market just like car insurance…

 

[disfan07]

In general, NO ONE should have to make any medical decisions based on the cost and the fear of going bankrupt.
That is where we are at this point. I had to turn down a different treatment that would improve my quality of life for one of my conditions but had to turn it down because the cost is just way too high....even with insurance. We had to make a decision between that treatment or me having an endoscopy done that I need as well.

In a few months we might be able to revisit the idea but for right now....we just can't.

We are at the point where I am scared to go to my doctors anymore because we just can't handle anything else financially. Nobody's life or quality of life should be based on money


We need to make sure that everyones is covered fairly by insurance. Regardles of whether or not that is private insruance or universal care, we need something. And we DO NOT need to have free market for health care. That still hurts the same group of people.

ETA: I just want to know WHY we allow the insruance companies to get away with what is basically discrimination. They are denying coverage to a particular group of individuals ONLY because they are sick. That's the same as denying someone something based on race, gender, religion, etc. It is discrimination against 1 specific subgroup of people. Any way you look at it, that is discrimination. Why have we allowed that to happen??

 

[disfan07]

I totally agree with this, also by purchasing insurance through your employer you do not know what the true cost of your insurance is. I never really know how much my employer is putting it. We should shop for medical insurance on the open market just like car insurance…

But again, we have to make teh insruance companies cover everyone. That wouldn't work right now becasue millions of people are denied coverage.

If you force private insraunce companies to cover everyone, something like that would work.

 

[Piecey]

I just added all ours up yesterday to make a plan. I wanted to cry.

Just paid Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh $3k.. not even going to come close to paying all my sons bills off.
For some reason they've yet to bill insurance for any of the 3 MRIs he's had done since he was born (he's 11months).. and they want to do a brain shunt (I'm estimating that's about a 40k procedure)..

DH had a hernia repair at the beginning of May. I've had a ton of issues (ER visits, biopsies, random tests to try to figure out what was wrong)...

It's been a fun year. Just waiting for that wonderful letter from insurance telling me we've hit our max OOP for the year. We did last year!

 

[indimom]

Count us in also. Beginning last fall we've racked up just under $10,000 in medical bills and we're still building. Yippee.

I have one question for the rest of you though. I have never experienced any medical situation where we were required to take out a loan to pay the bills. We have always just made payment plans with the hospital or doctor, at 0% interest.

It's what we did after our kids were born, and what we did after our son spent a month in the hospital as a 1yo. It's what we are doing now. Our daughter is currently getting an experimental procedure. We are still waiting to see if insurance will cover it, often it does not. And the financial forms we filled out at the retinal specialist' office stated that we could arrange a payment plan (or in our case add this bill to the payment plan we already have there) if insurance denied the procedure.

Is this not the case in other states?

 

[justbishop]

Count us in also. Beginning last fall we've racked up just under $10,000 in medical bills and we're still building. Yippee.

I have one question for the rest of you though. I have never experienced any medical situation where we were required to take out a loan to pay the bills. We have always just made payment plans with the hospital or doctor, at 0% interest.

It's what we did after our kids were born, and what we did after our son spent a month in the hospital as a 1yo. It's what we are doing now. Our daughter is currently getting an experimental procedure. We are still waiting to see if insurance will cover it, often it does not. And the financial forms we filled out at the retinal specialist' office stated that we could arrange a payment plan (or in our case add this bill to the payment plan we already have there) if insurance denied the procedure.

Is this not the case in other states?

The portion of the bill for DD's birth that we owed directly to the hospital was what we got a loan from our CU for. The hospital WAS willing to make a payment plan, but for no more than 12 mo., and we did not have room in our monthly budget for the payment amount that would have resulted in.

 

[teacup princess]

Yes. We set up a payment plan to cover DD's birth. Our bill after insurance for the 3 day stay was $3000+. That only covers the hospital portion though. All the doctors, anesthesia, referrals, ect are separate bills that are still coming in and can't be added to the payment plan. My favorite so far was the $500 bill from the neonatologist who was present at birth since my daughter had meconium in the fluid. Turned out she didn't have any issues with the meconium so the neonatologist didn't have to do any thing. So basically, $500 just to stand there??????

 

[drinkme]

Add us to the list! We had so much to pay that I had to go back to work full-time. Now, my dd12 has braces and our share is $5000. Ds10 may next need them. Not to mention a dental bridge I need (at the tune of about $4000-$5000).

And like the others, we have the "good" medical insurance too.

Another poster mentioned about the lower income getting their care for free (and free braces I heard from someone), and the rich can afford their medical care. So, us middle class are the ones who have to choose if some medical work is affordable. I know that I'm reconsidering getting that bridge for my teeth!

 

[nunzia]

Yes..medical care is nuts and again..how did we get here? When my kids were little and we took them to emergency room it was about $150 for a quick treatment for asthma..took my DGD for the same and the bill was $1,000.
My DH had a bunch of tests and he has high deductible insurance plan that we pay for since his company doesn't offer it, and after we met deductible we still had the responsibility for our portion..20% for the most part. That was a couple years ago and we just finished paying it off..all that and they still couldn't find out what was going on.

 

[Kay1]

We are all healthy but this issue is keeping up from early retirement. Medical costs are so out of line with everything else.

 

[Tink-aholic]

Part of the problem is that there should be no insurance for routine care, IMHO. Having insurance drives the price up for things because the insurers pay them. Look at LASIK, for example. Traditionally elective and therefore not covered by insurance. Where has the price gone on it, over the past decade? Waaaaay down. When people have to pay out of pocket, medical providers are forced to lower prices. But because insurers pay a big part of the cost, we don't often even know what the bill is, and we just think, "Well, it could be worse, I could be paying alllll that, not just my part." So in a kinda sick way, sometimes we're grateful.

We don't get fire insurance to cover the time we drop candle wax on the sofa and burn a hole in the cushion, or to cover oil changes on a car. Insurance should be to protect people from catastrophic events. Having insurers involved in routine care drives up costs for services, but also drives up the risk pool within the insurer.

Insurance covers routine things so that people will manage their own health and practice preventative care. How many people wouldn't see a doctor for their annual PAP smear because it would cost them too much but would be treated for cervical cancer? THAT would drive up the costs of insurance, trust me. Same for any other preventative maintenance.

There are multiple different kinds of insurance, including catastrophic care insurance. Do you each have insurance offered to you at your employers? Have you looked into whether or not they work together? More often than not, you could pay far less in premiums on the second policy than you ever would on copays or deductibles. That's what I do. You are also able to purchase an additional insurance plan out of pocket in addition to the one you already have. It might be much cheaper to pay the additional premium on the second insurance than what you are paying for copayments and deductibles now. You would really have to do your own research on that to find the right plan that would cover what yours doesn't, but it it something that always surprises me that more people don't do that on their own...especially those who complain so much about how much their insurance doesn't pay.

 

[ilovemk76]

In general, NO ONE should have to make any medical decisions based on the cost and the fear of going bankrupt.
That is where we are at this point. I had to turn down a different treatment that would improve my quality of life for one of my conditions but had to turn it down because the cost is just way too high....even with insurance. We had to make a decision between that treatment or me having an endoscopy done that I need as well.

In a few months we might be able to revisit the idea but for right now....we just can't.

We are at the point where I am scared to go to my doctors anymore because we just can't handle anything else financially. Nobody's life or quality of life should be based on money


We need to make sure that everyones is covered fairly by insurance. Regardles of whether or not that is private insruance or universal care, we need something. And we DO NOT need to have free market for health care. That still hurts the same group of people.

ETA: I just want to know WHY we allow the insruance companies to get away with what is basically discrimination. They are denying coverage to a particular group of individuals ONLY because they are sick. That's the same as denying someone something based on race, gender, religion, etc. It is discrimination against 1 specific subgroup of people. Any way you look at it, that is discrimination. Why have we allowed that to happen??

We make decisions every day based on the cost. Some have to live in rougher neighborhoods because housing in the safe place is not within their budget. We chose food based on what we can pay. Food choices have an effect on ones health.

You propose that we all wait until we are sick and they be allowed to pay a few dollars to get treatment? Why would anybody get insurance before hand?

 

[justbishop]

Just got done discussing/debating this issue with a friend who visited this morning. The conclusion we BOTH came to (and she is completely against a universal single payer system): whoever pays into the Medicaid system should have equal access to utilizing it, regardless of income. This, however, means that more people would have to be taken care of using the same pool of money, so yes...the system would have to change somewhat.

My suggestion on what to go after first? Prenatal/maternity care. There is no reason for most pregnant women to see an OB. Midwife/non-hospital birth model that most other first world countries use is generally much more cost effective, and actually has better statistical outcomes than our country's ridiculous process of treating birth as an illness to be managed. Reforming that system right there would save an ungodly amount in gov't healthcare spending.

 

[indimom]

The portion of the bill for DD's birth that we owed directly to the hospital was what we got a loan from our CU for. The hospital WAS willing to make a payment plan, but for no more than 12 mo., and we did not have room in our monthly budget for the payment amount that would have resulted in.

So, it is different. We have never been limited on the payback time. The pregnancies were easy to pay back in a year since they were in and out natural births. But our son's illness took two years to repay. We had payment plans with two different hospitals and with the various doctors. We were able to pay off some of the smaller bills (ambulance, tests, ER docs, etc) with cash we had on hand, but we did payment plans on all the rest.

Braces are the only thing I've experienced that required a set pay period. And I completely forgot to include that in this years total. We've got two kids going into braces this fall and both bills are about $5,000; so add another $10,000 to the pot. Wow, I might be able to write some of this off on my taxes this year.