• ShinkanTrain
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    2 days ago

    My eye-opener “wtf is going on over there” moment was when someone told me they Ubered to the hospital after they broke their arm cause ambulances are expensive.

    • stinky@redlemmy.com
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      2 days ago

      thousands of dollars expensive. and they won’t tell you the price before you get in.

      • LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        2 days ago

        They likely do not know the price before you get in either. It is going to be a different amount for every person, and varied by insurance. And the companies will make up numbers and try to get as much as they can.

        ~$16,000 is what it cost me to unwillingly go to a hospital in an ambulance, given an MRI (with my phone, wallet still in my pockets… Thankfully only my head went in I guess) and then released 4 hours later blood still dried on my face and told to see my normal doctor to get the results. Had torn something in my thigh and lost a molar, but neither of those issues were addressed. My buddy picked me up and we were gone.

        That was 2016 prices. Young and dumb and made a stupid mistake…

        • lunar17@lemmy.world
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          2 days ago

          I’m sorry, but I just wanted to say that being charged $16k for emergency medical attention doesn’t sound like a mistake on your part.

          • LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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            2 days ago

            Yeah I get you, the motorcycle accident trying to avoid a turtle in the road was my accident. I was only going about 15mph when I dodged it but clipped a curb and went over the handlebars. The hit to the head is why an ambulance can take you against your will. If you are “in your faculties” they cannot force you to go… but if concussed or such they can take you either way because you may be a danger to yourself or others.

      • rumba@lemmy.zip
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        2 days ago

        and they won’t tell you the price before you get in.

        1. Won’t tell you the price
        2. Once you get to the hospital, every individual you work with bills you separately
        3. The hospital make an effort to bill you before you leave, but that’s often not the whole price.
        4. Some of them don’t even bill you until you’ve already paid the initial amount and left. Weeks later you can still get bills for hundreds for stupid crap like someone brought you a regular painkiller in a cup but couldn’t be bothered to charge you before you left.
    • andros_rex@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      I started having double vision (and have a history of seizures). I drove myself to the Urgent Care, who told me to drive to the ER, who let a medical student look at me for fifteen minutes, and then sent me home (I drove back).

      At least it was only a few hundred dollars wasted, instead of a few thousand with the ambulance.

      • modality@lemmy.myserv.one
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        2 days ago

        Vision problems? History of seizures? We must be neighbors because you just described, what I assume, is afflicting nearly all the drivers in my area

        • andros_rex@lemmy.world
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          2 days ago

          The meds I’m on control them (although I’ve basically got no information from doctors on why I had them/what could be done to prevent them in the future - medical care here is not great). I’d rather not drive, but there is no public transport where I live and I need to hold down a job.