Dealing with the medical industry in some countries can be a Kafka-esque experience; sometimes, people have no idea what is happening, with healthcare providers using every opportunity to charge the insurance companies. One might think they are working together — or would that be presumptive? In any case, stories of medical profiteering are all too familiar, leading to potentially bankrupting outcomes.
1. A Thorough Medical Check
Next time you visit the doctor, examine your medical bill before signing anything. There is always a chance you could find fees for a gynecologist like one puzzled patient. The only problem? He was in for pneumonia and was a man.
2. A Sneaky Pediatrician
When parents bring a child into the world, medical insurance payments are the last thing on their minds. However, one canny father checked his bill. He found the pediatrician who stopped for a quick chat, neither once saw the baby nor was requested, and decided to sneak a sizable fee into the bill for pediatrician consultancy fees.
3. Shotgun Ambulance Ride
After a young man and his girlfriend got into a car wreck, they were lucky to escape with minor bruises. The other driver was in worse wear, yet the couple still rode in the ambulance for good measure, the man having to ride shotgun due to no available space. His only treatment was a duty nurse telling him to go home and ice his swollen face. Three weeks later, he got a bill for an ambulance ride, which he refused to pay.
4. Brace for Impact
Imagine seeing a local strip mall physiotherapist for a strained tendon, leaving the consultation with a hand brace, and then seeing a bill for $750. This scenario met one unfortunate patient who saw the insurance company add $300 to the original price — still a fiscal violation. Upon realizing the hand brace was a low-standard version, readily available at any big box store, the man politely mailed the brace back to his doctor and refused to pay. He heard no more after that.
5. Tissue Carrying Charges
When one’s parents reach the latter stages of life, moving them into assisted living facilities can be heartbreaking. Moreover, it can’t help when medical insurance vultures swoop during one of life’s most testing periods. Imagine a daughter’s surprise when she found fees for toiletries and tissue boxes in her mother’s first receipt. The surprise was because she had paid for all these items herself; this sounds like a job for Better Call Saul’s Jimmy McGill.
6. He Lived a Good Life
Dog lovers, look away now. The next storyteller recalls her anguish when hearing about her friend’s run-in with a dog kennel. Going on vacation, the friend booked their fur baby into a well-renowned local dog kennel. However, when he returned, they informed him that the dog had escaped, never to be seen again. To add insult to this flagrant violation of trust, they presented a bill, though reasoned that he would only need to pay until Tuesday — when the hound escaped.
7. A Doctor or a Cowboy?
The next story serves as a warning for anybody considering the emergency room for a standard medical consultation. One observer had a case of pink eye and, with it being Sunday, didn’t want to wait until Monday. Upon leaving the E.R. room, he received an invoice three weeks later for $296, excluding meds. The procedure he received was a doctor taking a brisk look at his eyes and then writing a prescription.
8. The Copayment From Hell
A pregnant mother went into labor and had an emergency c-section, which, on average, costs Americans $17,000 to perform. The poor lady then went through a year of torment when her insurance company told her she must pay for the anesthesia, as this wasn’t covered in her co-pay policy. The insurance company had a great reason for this feature: her policy only covered half her body.
9. Low Blood Sugar; High Costs
When a mother with type-1 diabetes went into preterm labor, she went to the hospital. Worryingly, she was only 33 weeks gone, and her child’s lungs weren’t fully developed. The hospital determined she must stay hospitalized until 36 weeks, during which time they checked her blood sugar levels several times a day. However, they declined to mention that every check would cost her $36, a far cry from the roughly $45 a box of testing strips.
10. Use of a Heart Rate Monitor
After a routine visit to her neurologist, the doctor asked his patient to wear an oximeter overnight to check on some data. Curiously, she received a phone call days later, asking how she managed to cope with so little sleep and thought nothing of it. Then, a bill for $14 arrived in the mail — the attached cost was for “use of the monitor.”
12 Expenses People Admit Are Draining Their Wallets
Saving money is often easier said than done, and specific activities and expenses seemingly exist to extract as much money as possible from our wallets. Recently, men and women met in an online discussion to discuss frugal tips, and as a result, they identified many expenses that people admit are draining their bank accounts.
12 Expenses People Admit Are Draining Their Wallets
Source: Reddit.
