My crapz are pricey

My little kid fell sick at night. He came to my bedroom telling me his stomach hurts real bad. Unsure what to do I brought the guy to the ER. Doctor said, it's likely appendicitis. He turned out to be slightly constipated. The hospital billed $10,934.00.

Insurance got most of the bill covered, but there was a $1,189.40 portion they wanted me to pay. I got curious, what was it exactly that they did, that costs $11K. In the end, this is how much money you will make in half a year working full time for minimum salary. What could they possibly do in a couple hours that's worth so much?

I called and requested the itemized bill. Here's what they sent me:

I am certainly not an MD, so it is not very clear to me, what is what, and how much does it actually cost, but this item clearly stood out: CT ABDOMEN PELVIS W CON. That was a CT scan. $7K is pretty pricey for a CT scan, but what do I know? So I googled up, what's the actual price for one.

According to this, "If you are paying cash, you'll probably start searching for CT scan prices online. You'll find a wide range of prices $300 to $1500", and you could actually be double-charged if both abdomen and pelvis are scanned. We were in hospital for appendix, so it's either in abdomen, or in pelvis, and it must be clear for medical practitioner where exactly, but what do I know.

Per this, the fair price customized for zip code 85224, is $646.

How about this? $370. Kidding? Picking up URLs? Not really, just going through search results, top to bottom.

Well, that's quite a difference. Definitely, not $7K, looks like a pricing mistake. So, I called a hospital to explain, that there was a billing error, and that they have to recount the bill amount. Hell, if you are not happy, ask for money back. Well, not that fast. The guy in the billing department explained me why they charged so much, and the reason was "because these are our prices".

Needless to say, I was foreseeing something like that from the very beginning, and asked the billing lady in the hospital: "I would like to know the procedure cost before they administer it". And needless to say, she said they "can not" do it. That is certainly a lie, of course they can. But I decided at that time not to argue with people, who might be operating on my son.

I am pretty sure, I am not the first guy in that situation. That hospital is not unique, and their practices are not different from any other hospital in this country. But what makes my situation unique is that I will not do as I'm told. This is a rip-off. This is misrepresentation and fraud. This is taking advantage of people in distress.

More people must refuse to pay, but this is hard, stressful, and there is a lot of unknowns. People are afraid of being sued and harassed. I am sure I will be harassed a lot. I will share my experience, so that you know what to expect, when you decide to take a stand and not pay.

I hope, this will be useful. Stay on this blog, I will be posting the updates.