OT: Emergency room bill question

[dorndawg]

Your gif game is scrong, though.

 

[Bill Shankly]

Just a friendly heads up, when you use this worn-out trope, you are telling on yourself: you care more about wealthy foreigners obtaining top-of-the-line healthcare than you do tens of millions of Americans obtaining basic, life-saving healthcare.

No, what he is telling you is we have the best healthcare system in the world. We have the best outcomes in the world once you get sick. Where we fail is keeping people from getting sick. MOST of that is on us, not on the healthcare system.

 

[dorndawg]

No, what he is telling you is we have the best healthcare system in the world. We have the best outcomes in the world once you get sick. Where we fail is keeping people from getting sick. MOST of that is on us, not on the healthcare system.

I'm afraid your statement is simply not evidence-based.

Countries ranked by life expectancy

<label></label>

#	Country	Life Expectancy (both sexes)	Females Life Expectancy	Males Life Expectancy
1	Hong Kong	85.29	88.17	82.38
2	Japan	85.03	88.09	81.91
3	Macao	84.68	87.62	81.73
4	Switzerland	84.25	86.02	82.42
5	Singapore	84.07	86.15	82.06
6	Italy	84.01	85.97	81.90
7	Spain	83.99	86.68	81.27
8	Australia	83.94	85.80	82.08
9	Channel Islands	83.60	85.31	81.82
10	Iceland	83.52	84.90	82.15
11	South Korea	83.50	86.42	80.46
12	Israel	83.49	84.91	81.98
13	Sweden	83.33	84.97	81.69
14	France	83.13	85.82	80.32
14	Martinique	83.13	86.10	79.85
15	Malta	83.06	84.68	81.37
16	Canada	82.96	84.74	81.15
17	Norway	82.94	84.78	81.11
18	Ireland	82.81	84.32	81.29
19	New Zealand	82.80	84.38	81.20
19	Greece	82.80	85.08	80.52
20	Luxembourg	82.79	84.76	80.83
21	Netherlands	82.78	84.35	81.20
22	Guadeloupe	82.74	85.94	79.16
23	Portugal	82.65	85.28	79.79
24	Finland	82.48	85.14	79.82
25	Belgium	82.17	84.31	80.00
26	Austria	82.05	84.19	79.88
27	Germany	81.88	84.14	79.62
28	Slovenia	81.85	84.44	79.26
29	United Kingdom	81.77	83.28	80.22
30	Réunion	81.55	84.45	78.52
31	Cyprus	81.51	83.45	79.55
32	Denmark	81.40	83.27	79.54
33	U.S. Virgin Islands	81.17	83.52	78.64
34	Taiwan	81.04	83.64	78.49
35	Costa Rica	80.94	83.39	78.53
36	Chile	80.74	82.80	78.54
36	Guam	80.74	83.98	77.63
37	Qatar	80.73	82.49	79.78
38	Puerto Rico	80.69	83.92	77.27
39	French Guiana	80.53	83.38	77.80
40	Maldives	79.89	81.58	78.53
41	Mayotte	79.85	83.24	76.62
41	Czech Republic (Czechia)	79.85	82.35	77.33
42	Barbados	79.64	80.85	78.36
43	Curaçao	79.41	82.08	76.42
44	Poland	79.27	82.98	75.51
44	Lebanon	79.27	81.17	77.53
45	Cuba	79.18	81.12	77.25
45	Estonia	79.18	83.06	74.98
46	United States	79.11	81.65	76.61
47	Panama	79.10	82.20	76.14
48	Croatia	79.02	82.02	75.95
49	Albania	78.96	80.48	77.48
50	Oman	78.58	80.94	76.90

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https://www.worldometers.info/demographics/life-expectancy/

 

[Big Sheep81]

If you can, tell them you want to pay in full and ask for either a discounted rate or to pay what a private insurer would pay, typically 60% or so of the bill.

 

[jethreauxdawg]

You’ll love this one, dorn. Can update your chart to show which countries give the most “free” cokes to poor people? Any chance that has an impact on our healthcare system?

 

[dorndawg]

You’ll love this one, dorn. Can update your chart to show which countries give the most “free” cokes to poor people? Any chance that has an impact on our healthcare system?

By all means, please do enlighten me with your data on free "cokes" per capita per country.

 

[jethreauxdawg]

I am just curious if there is a correlation between the amount of calories given away by the government per capita to the life expectancy of their country. I do not know the answer, but I thought you might enjoy the exercise.

 

[johnson86-1]

Nah I'm taking it right here, padnah. You are telling us you believe being poor is a personal failing, and a poor American has no right to healthcare. Man up and own it.

A poor american doesn't have any more right to healthcare than a rich american. It's a good thing if poor people can get healthcare; that doesn't mean it's a right.

 

[dorndawg]

A poor american doesn't have any more right to healthcare than a rich american. It's a good thing if poor people can get healthcare; that doesn't mean it's a right.

Healthcare is a right.

 

[dorndawg]

I am just curious if there is a correlation between the amount of calories given away by the government per capita to the life expectancy of their country. I do not know the answer, but I thought you might enjoy the exercise.

Again, please pass along your data.

 

[johnson86-1]

I'm afraid your statement is simply not evidence-based.

Countries ranked by life expectancy
/

Do you think you have any relevant evidence? Can you understand why life expectancy doesn't respond to his point?

Even then, it's possible you are wrong about what the data shows. For some easily identifiable demographics, your life expectancy will be better in the US than anywhere else. Asian americans in the US have longer life expectancies than Japan (~86.3 to ~85.02). So even with historically less healthy populations than the Japanese mixed in, a general category of asian american enjoys better life expectancy at birth than the country with the highest life expectancy in the world.


https://www.worldometers.info/demographics/life-expectancy/
.

It's surprisingly hard to find life expectancies for different ethnicities in developed countries just using simple google searches.

 

[johnson86-1]

Very few people come to the USA for healthcare. Over 1,000,000 Americans leave the USA for healthcare every year though.

The US is probably the best in the world at caring for seriously sick and injured people. It is probably the worst in the world as far as combining government intrusion that drives up costs without also putting government controls on cost.

It makes sense that people would travel here for life threatening or just complicated and/or cutting edge treatments while US residents travel elsewhere for "routine" surgeries and treatments.

 

[johnson86-1]

Healthcare is a right.

You can be overly emotional and stupid all you want. Healthcare is not a right. We have a lot of screwed up things in this country, but you still can't go point a gun at a health provider and it be ok because you have a right to healthcare.

 

[jethreauxdawg]

I don’t have those charts and I couldn’t post them if I did. My suspicion is that we are feeding ourselves to death.
I’ve made it clear in other posts in this thread that I believe our healthcare system could be better. I welcome a legitimate discussion of the issue. I don’t think socialized healthcare is the solution, but I’m open to being wrong. I don’t think it will make it more available than what we have, but it will decrease the quality. Another poster said millions leave this country for healthcare elsewhere. I would be interested in knowing what procedure they needed, where they went and what led to that decision. The people I have met who came to the USA for surgeries did so because they need it but were told the same surgery in their home country had an incredibly long waiting list. I’ve heard it can take a month or more just to get an MRI in Canada. That’s absurd if true. Instead of trying to make inflammatory comments, please tell me what specific things should we be doing here to improve our healthcare and how do we pay for it?

 

[johnson86-1]

Yeah, I'm with a big system, and I was in a meeting where they said we only profited from 17% of our patients. They had to make up the deficit for medicaid, self pay, and often medicare.

They are blowing smoke up your *** on that one. Yes, they make a ton more off of private paying customers, but they make a good bit off of Medicare, and a little off of medicaid and actually lose money on non-payers. The government restricts the supply at doctors at way less than the demand, so they have a ton of leverage and will generally be able to squeeze out any excess "profit" in most markets. If Medicare all the sudden started paying the same rates as private insurance, our hospital would look like it was making a lot of money for a little while, but within five years, doctors would make a lot more and the hospital would be complaining that they just barely make a little money off of private pay and medicare and that just barely covering what the lose on Medicaid and non-payers.

When they say they only profited from 17% of their patients, what they are really saying is that they base compensation off of a weighted average revenue, and for your organization, basically only 17% of patients pay more than the average cost. Doesn't mean they're not making money off the others. It's just a way for them to account for it. And a useful way because if the patient mix moves to where you have relatively more medicaid and medicare to private insurance, then the hospital is going to have a hard time paying the salaries that are based on a better paying mix.

 

[TNT.sixpack]

You have 2 issues. One is the excessiveness of the charges. The other is the $1000 bill itself. Unless that's your deductible or co-pay, you shouldn't be getting that bill. As Zombiekissinger said, the ER doc could be a contract employee. This is the new business model for hospitals - to employ contract doctors, radiologists and labs who bill separately from the facility. If this $1000 bill represents anything other than your deductible or co-pay, it's illegal under the Ms. Balance billing statute. And every hospital in the state does it, every day (actually the contract providers do it). You need to get a copy of your EOB from your insurer and see what this $1000 represents and if it's a balance billing issue, you need to call them and cite statute 83-9-5(i) and tell them to write it off. If they give you grief, then contact the Ms. Dept of Insurance and let them contact the provider.

 

[dorndawg]

Do you think you have any relevant evidence? Can you understand why life expectancy doesn't respond to his point?

Even then, it's possible you are wrong about what the data shows. For some easily identifiable demographics, your life expectancy will be better in the US than anywhere else. Asian americans in the US have longer life expectancies than Japan (~86.3 to ~85.02). So even with historically less healthy populations than the Japanese mixed in, a general category of asian american enjoys better life expectancy at birth than the country with the highest life expectancy in the world.


https://www.worldometers.info/demographics/life-expectancy/
.

It's surprisingly hard to find life expectancies for different ethnicities in developed countries just using simple google searches.

I do believe one can make a strong correlation to life expectancy and healthcare outcomes, yes. I'm curious why you are concerned about ethnicity within countries?

 

[dorndawg]

You can be overly emotional and stupid all you want. Healthcare is not a right. We have a lot of screwed up things in this country, but you still can't go point a gun at a health provider and it be ok because you have a right to healthcare.

You can't point a gun at anyone who is not threatening you or another person; that is called aggravated assault in most jurisdictions.