Medical Cost

For anyone out there who doesn't believe in the value of health insurance, I offer this cautionary tale. Sometime in November of 2008, I began to receive bills for the 2 1/2 months of surgery and care that I had received following my heart attack. While I was in the hospital I had noticed, particularly when the nurses checked my blood sugar, that the nurses would use a hand bar code scanner on the items that the were using on me. First they would enter some code, then they would scan the bar code. After I realized that this was for billings purposes, which meant, every surgery, every medicine, every bandage, every yankauer (which they replaced every time I drop my suction tube on the ground), everything was being billed. Even then, still just concentrating on getting better, my mind spun with the cost, the bill that was growing for. I was terrified on this bill. Not long after, I got out the hospital, I got the bill for my first night, which was at a different hospital (Huntington in Pasadena vs USC Memorial). That bill totaled just over $240k - for one night! Of course this night included major surgery and batteries of tests and scans. Sometime in November I got what I thought was the first bill from my longer stay. I nearly collapsed when I read it - it read "Estimated Amount You Owe - $4.2 million" THAT"s RIGHT

4.2 MILLION DOLLARS

If my entire family put every dollar earned toward that bill for the rest of my life, we wouldn't even come close to paying such a bill. But it wasn't really a bill, more of an FYI. Here is where the insurance comes in. That number is in essence a fake number that the hospital comes up with because they know you have insurance, which apparently I have good insurance. This number is the number the hospital produce before the cost is negotiated with the insurance company. Once the hospital and insurance agree on a real bill (which is much less than the retail cost), THEN your insurance coverage is applied to the bill - you know (insurance pay 70% of total bill, something like that), and then you get an actual bill. So, months went by and no real bill arrived. Sometime in February I began to receive actual bills for biopsies and clinic appointments and such (there were many because I was sick in January) that had occurred in 2009. What about my 2008 bills? Finally I mustered the courage to call my insurance company (always a dicey proposition) and inquired about two things. First I wanted to know how much lifetime courage remained on my policy. Once I found out that, I asked the representative about the $4.2 million dollar bill. After some back and with the representative to access the correct bill, he simply said "It's been taken care of". WHAT?!?!? Ultimately, the bill had been negotiated down to $400k+, however, I had already reach my out-of-pocket maximum for 2008, which meant insurance was covering everything at that point. That right, my bill for 2 1/2 month hospital stay, including 2 surgeries, x-rays everyday, a pharmacy full of medication, all of it, ended up being

$0

Now tell me insurance isn't worth it. Now I understand, that insurance is expensive, and I am blessed in this capacity, however, if you have the means, please get it, you never know what could happen. You could wake up one day needing a heart transplant.