Hospital takes advantage of a 92 yr old grandmother by charging her $765 for a bandaid!
. Unregistered
Posted 2/5/2012 4:28 pm
A fellow parade-goer bumped into Fred Stovel's 92-year-old mother-in-law at Manzanita's Fourth of July party last summer, leaving a scratch that just wouldn't stop bleeding.
Stovel asked about a Band-Aid as the beach town's volunteer fire squad marched by, and the crew directed him to the Tillamook County General Hospital ambulance parked at their station.
"We walked over and as they offered help, my mother-in-law was clear: 'I don't want anything that's going to cost money," said Stovel, adding that they were careful to not go inside the ambulance for fear of incurring a charge. The medics, employed by the hospital, "didn't say it would be on the house or anything, but they said, 'Don't worry about it.'"
So Stovel's mother-in-law eased onto the edge of the rig's doorway as EMTs checked her vital signs, cleaned the wound and applied a bandage to her leg.
In November, a bill for $765 arrived.
Just as you'd expect a bandage to smart a bit when it's ripped off, it's safe to figure you'll pay for anything that comes out of the shiny white doors of an ambulance. That's especially true in remote areas, where insurance and health care experts say it's expensive to keep highly trained ambulance crews on hand for events such as a coastal parade.
In his understandable I'm-not-going-to-pay-$765-for-a-bandage ire, Stovel spoke with the hospital several times about the issue and said he was told its representatives would look into his complaint. Meantime, Medicare and the family's insurance company denied the claims. Both groups typically cover such bills if patients are actually driven to the hospital in an ambulance, hospital and insurance specialists said.
But when potential patients refuse to be transported, they're often on the hook for all charges.
Three bills and two months later, Stovel said last week that all he'd heard from the hospital was a potential 10 percent discount off the bill.
"These were legitimate services and they were billed appropriately," Seufert said. "We wouldn't charge $765 for the application of a Band-Aid, I can guarantee that."
When potential patients seek help from an ambulance, she said, there are typically additional services provided even if someone refuses to be rolled on to the hospital. Medics check vital signs to be sure that an injury or fall wasn't the result of something else, say a heart issue or stroke.
"We do all that treatment, offering to clean wounds, appl
Posted 2/5/2012 5:01 pm
"We walked over and as they offered help, my mother-in-law was clear: 'I don't want anything that's going to cost money," said Stovel, adding that they were careful to not go inside the ambulance for fear of incurring a charge. The medics, employed by the hospital, "didn't say it would be on the house or anything, but they said, 'Don't worry about it.'"
Sorry, but you repukes would be screaming if something was wrong and they didn't catch it. I can hear you now:
We walked over after a nasty fall and all they ever gave us was a bandaid! They're paramedics for f-cks sake!!
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Repukes have done more damage for tort abuses than any other species on this earth. Yes, repukes are a different species. Like neanderthals. Subhuman repukes.
They took 10 minutes if that. That's $8k an hour. C'mon, even you libs who think money is endless think that's out of line. Make it $100 , still overpriced and they guy would probalby pay. They weren't doctors you know, not even nurses.
Posted 2/5/2012 5:19 pm
What happened to common sense and simple human kindness with people? They should be so embarrassed to harpoon an old lady like this over a minor cut and a band aid?
Posted 2/5/2012 5:26 pm
When potential patients seek help from an ambulance, she said, there are typically additional services provided even if someone refuses to be rolled on to the hospital. Medics check vital signs to be sure that an injury or fall wasn't the result of something else, say a heart issue or stroke.
"We do all that treatment, offering to clean wounds, apply dressings, all those different things," she said. "It's a full range of services, not the single application of a Band-Aid."
if they HAD found evidence of a heart attack or stroke, no one would question it was worth the $765. or if the wound was left untreated, got infected and led to serious complications, no one would question it would have been worth the money to treat it at the time.
medical pros have to take those precautions, that's what medicine is about. you don't get to b-tch and demand your money back only for the procedures that didn't find anything serious. your house didn't burn down last year, but that doesn't entitle you to a refund of your home insurance either.
$765 is too expensive but it's not the outrage you tards make it out to be.
Just like if you were on a road-trip and needed a $50 fuel-filter for your car, and the dealership with the proper part did a complete end-to-end inspection of your car as part of the installation - and charged you $1500 for it.
You'd be skipping and singing on the way out the door, safe in the knowledge that your car was good to go.
Posted 2/5/2012 5:31 pm
The service the emt's provided was more than a band-aid. I can almost guarantee you if they just gave her a bandaid and she then had a stroke two hours later....who would she have sued! That's right, the emts and the healthcare organization. Our litigious society has forced all of us to cover our butts.
It could burn your car to the ground without so much as a wave goodbye, melting the locking mechanisms in the process, sealing you in to die in a fiery ball of burning leatherette.
Oh, you'd be WISHING for that $1500 inspection then - WOULDN'T YOU!
Posted 2/5/2012 5:39 pm
The $765 is not just to get a Band-Aid, it includes the ambulance crew being on standby and being paid even if they do not have any calls. Depending on the crew it would be three shifts of 2 or more employees preparing and waiting for a call. Stocking their truck and making sure everything is ready and cleaning up after the last call.
Unfortunately it is not cheap to keep a crew on standby for a emergency calls.
I'd explain to you you don't fall over dead if your catalytic converter is loose, but you don't seem to understand the difference.