Emergency Rooms...

Kyria · Post by **Kyria** » February 13, 2004, 6:59 pm

A few weeks ago I was at my mom's house with my 3-year-old son. My sister-in-law was there with her 2 daughters and her son (ages 2, 3 and 6). We decided to do a craft with the kids... sock puppets.

In the middle of trying to help the kids glue their googly eyes

onto their puppets, my son starts crying. He can't find his eye. Turns out, he shoved the damn thing up his nose (unfortunately, kids do things like this).

My parents and I spend the next few minutes trying to fish the thing out with a pair of tweezers, but it isn't working. We call the emergency room to find out how serious it is... they tell us it could be serious, but won't know until we get there, so my dad and I get the kid in the car and drive about 25 minutes to the emergency room.

There, we wait, fill out paperwork, he gets weighed, and then we wait some more. Finally we get called back, and my little boy stops, sneezes, and there goes a googly eye shooting across the room.

Today I got a bill in the mail for fucking $383. What the fuck did they do worth $383!? Was that a $383 sucker they gave him before we left? $383 in cleaning supplies to clean the little spatter of snot that came flying out? They didn't DO shit. Fucking hospitals, I swear to God.

PS Friends don't let friends shove googly eyes up their noses. *sigh*

Pahreyia · Post by **Pahreyia** » February 13, 2004, 7:40 pm

Contest the charges.

Tegellan · Post by **Tegellan** » February 13, 2004, 7:43 pm

Going to the ER is free where I live!

Denmark pwns j00!

Akaran_D · Post by **Akaran_D** » February 13, 2004, 9:51 pm

It was over $500 for some lab fees for a handful of liver tests a few months ago.

Go fig.

Pherr the Dorf · Post by **Pherr the Dorf** » February 13, 2004, 10:42 pm

Did you at least get to keep the googly eye?

Kyria · Post by **Kyria** » February 13, 2004, 11:02 pm

Pherr the Dorf wrote:Did you at least get to keep the googly eye?

Actually when we got back I put it on the kitchen table and kind of forgot about it. My mom saw it and put it back in the bag with the others lol.

Pherr the Dorf · Post by **Pherr the Dorf** » February 13, 2004, 11:36 pm

Heh my kid is 3, I understand all to well the delight they seem to take in stucking objects in noses/ears/etc

Taly · Post by **Taly** » February 14, 2004, 1:09 am

one nice thing about hospital bills is they can't come after you to pay them but it does sadly go on your credit report.

Hesten · Post by **Hesten** » February 14, 2004, 8:20 am

Hehe, not only are they free in Denmark Tegellan, but i work at a hospital, and i had pulled something in my hand that i needed them to look at, so i just had to walk over and ask them if they planned to use their computers today, or if i should shut them down, and presty, instant service

Chidoro · Post by **Chidoro** » February 14, 2004, 11:48 am

Any insurance? Emergency rooms forego any in-network, out-of-network situations.

Sounds like your kid is a real trooper though. I can see a child being completely freaked out at the situation

Boogahz · Post by **Boogahz** » February 14, 2004, 12:00 pm

Taly wrote:one nice thing about hospital bills is they can't come after you to pay them but it does sadly go on your credit report.

The good side is that Medical charges cannot be held "against" you when applying for credit. It's just there.

Kyria · Post by **Kyria** » February 14, 2004, 12:13 pm

Chidoro wrote:Any insurance? Emergency rooms forego any in-network, out-of-network situations.

Sounds like your kid is a real trooper though. I can see a child being completely freaked out at the situation

Nope, no insurance unfortunately.

And yeah he is. I don't think it bothered him to have it stuck up his nose. He was just upset that he couldn't put eyes on his puppet hehe

Aireanna Wyndcather · February 14, 2004, 1:56 pm

Last summer I was walking with my fiancee and his family to Red, White, and Boom (Columbus's big firework show) in my flip flops. I walked almost a mile in them and my foot started to hurt when I walked. I figured it was just because they dont have OMGIAMRETARDEDCAUSEALOTISTWOWORDS of support. Well, the next day I went to Wyndot Lake, which is a big water park here, and walked around again in them. My foot swelled to a football and I couldnt walk. I dont have medical insurance, so I didnt want to go to the hospital but my mother insisted. We go, I sit in the waiting room for 4 hours, they take me back FINALLY and I sprained the tendon in my foot. It took them 2 seconds to wrap it up and send me home. 2 weeks later I get a bill in the mail for $797 dollars. WTF! To wrap me up in an ace bandage! Then I get another bill from them for $292 dollars for nurses fees.

I almost shit my pants. I still havent paid that off. Im definatly not going to the hospital again. EVER.

Fairweather Pure · Post by **Fairweather Pure** » February 14, 2004, 6:08 pm

one nice thing about hospital bills is they can't come after you to pay them but it does sadly go on your credit report.

This is entirely uninformed and false. I work in the emergency room and I am the one who has to put in the charges. I am also the one step before we send people to collections. I send at least 200+ people to collections every week. Hospitals go after people on a daily basis for billing purposes.

About the original story, it is against the law for any hospital to give advice over the phone, even if it is the blatantly obvious (my kid took 20 asprin, should I bring him to the ER?). You tell them to call thier family doctor or come in if that is thier decision and we would be happy to help. If it's really serious, we simply have to tell them to hang up and dial 9-1-1.

ER charges are fucked. As I'm entering them into the system, I simply shake my head. The charges are so arbitrary it's insane. Your charges could vary wildy depending on who the doc is that orders the tests. Some docs order every fucking test on the planet for something as simple as a nosebleed. Others are very aware and careful what they order.

My favorite charge is the radiology reports. We send them out to other specialists for varying opinions. So at the end of the day, you could have had 5 doc examine your x-ray at 40$ a pop, and they all say the same thing. When you visit our ER, you get 3 bills. There is another if you were brought in by ambulance too.

One thing I've learned in the ER is most of the people that come in or bring thier kids have absolutley no reason to be there. I love it when some soccor mom with a "really bad headache" says her pain lvl is a 10 on a scale of 1-10. It really makes me want to tell her about the 40 yr old man that was in here in hour ago with his face and hair burnt off that was in so much pain he openly pissed and shit his pants. That is a fucking 10 lady. I'm advocating changing the scale to include that example

It just bothers me when we have to have real medical concerns that have to wait due to someone's poor decision making skills. It happens all the time too. Scared parents are the absolute worse though. They just freak and run to the ER over every little thing, no matter how mundane.

Anyway, I'm done now, had to vent a bit

Mplor · Post by **Mplor** » February 14, 2004, 7:14 pm

I used to volunteer at a hospital and spent several months in the ER. I can't speak to costs, but I can tell you that a whole lot of people come into the ER who should have really gone to their family doctor or local urgent care.

Kyria · Post by **Kyria** » February 15, 2004, 12:38 am

Mplor wrote:I used to volunteer at a hospital and spent several months in the ER. I can't speak to costs, but I can tell you that a whole lot of people come into the ER who should have really gone to their family doctor or local urgent care.

Well, there was a reason that we called first. We were told that it 'could be serious' and 'we can't really tell until you get him here'. Either way, they ran no tests on him, they didn't have to perform an extraction, they did nothing but weigh him and take his temperature, and I'm pretty damn sure it wasn't $383 worth of service.

By the way, at the time there was only us and one other family there, so nobody had to wait on service because of us.

Mplor · Post by **Mplor** » February 15, 2004, 2:59 am

Sorry if it sounded like I was talking about you, Kyria. I was responding to Fairweather general comments.

Kyria · Post by **Kyria** » February 15, 2004, 11:25 am

Mplor wrote:Sorry if it sounded like I was talking about you, Kyria. I was responding to Fairweather general comments.

Legenae · Post by **Legenae** » February 15, 2004, 2:16 pm

Fairweather Pure wrote: One thing I've learned in the ER is most of the people that come in or bring thier kids have absolutley no reason to be there. I love it when some soccor mom with a "really bad headache" says her pain lvl is a 10 on a scale of 1-10. It really makes me want to tell her about the 40 yr old man that was in here in hour ago with his face and hair burnt off that was in so much pain he openly pissed and shit his pants. That is a fucking 10 lady.

Heh. I've been to the hospital for a "really bad headache" twice in my life. First time was when I was 12. Within a half hour of getting this excruciating headache I started throwing up. And I didn't stop. Finally my mom brought me into emerg where they told her I was experiencing a migraine.

The second time was a few days after my 25th birthday. I ended up getting a migraine on my birthday (I'm used to getting migraines at this point) but this time it lasted for almost a week, which had never happened before. That time I didn't go to emerg because I had a migraine. I went in because it wouldn't fucking go away.

These days it's normal for me to have a migraine that can last up to 10 days. As for that number scale you mentioned, I was told to keep a diary of my migraines and rate them on a scale of 1 to 10. Maybe that's what your "soccer mom" was doing. Obviously you can't compare a headache to a badly burned person. That's 2 different levels of pain. But for that "soccer mom" that particular headache could very well have been a "10" for HER.

Siji · Post by **Siji** » February 16, 2004, 4:22 pm

The medical field is second only to insurance companies as total scams..

Seebs · Post by **Seebs** » February 16, 2004, 4:32 pm

Should have taken him to the Free Clinic. He would have seen some things that would have educated him and they have complete anonimity.

Of course, they would have wanted to stick that tiny q-tip is his pee-pee hole, which I hear is rather unpleasant.

Heed my advice .. oh, and the hookers go crazy over a cute little boy.

Marbus · Post by **Marbus** » February 17, 2004, 3:06 am

LOL Seeber!

This is why we need socialized medicine or SOME form of care for all citizens. No one wants to pay for it but someone needs to sit down and put together a 2 fold plan. Part one will show everyone how they really ARE paying for it in Taxes one way or another and Part two will be a plan to funnel those monies into a system for everyone... I pretect that this will happen right after we institute a flat tax across the board for everyone no matter what income bracket you are in. No deductions, no exceptions... I say we take a look at 25% to start off with. It's a LOT less than I'm paying right now and would be about right for someone in a low income bracket and finally it would mean one hell of a lot of money from some joker making a million a year

It's late, heh of course I truly don't think SM can work in the US but really do think we need to do something...

Marb