I was opening the mail a couple days ago and I noticed a bunch of medical bills from Henry's birth, circumcision and also his two-day stay in the hospital for his jaundice.
The bill for his birth actually surprised me. The total amount was a lot less than I thought it would be... I'm thankful that my insurance picked up the tab, though!
His little snip-snip cost $430. Not too unreasonable.
What I absolutely cannot believe is how much the bill was for the jaundice treatment.
Remember, Henry received two-days under the biliruben lights and then an IV with plain old saline to help him pee more.
Drumroll please...
The grand total was....
JUST SLIGHTLY UNDER SIX THOUSAND DOLLARS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
You have GOT to be freaking kidding me! How in the world can it cost that much!? Basically, this is a very common ailment for newborns and the treatment is phototherapy... you can't get much more non-invasive or simple than that. Literally, all the nurse and doctors had to do was flip on the switch to turn the lights on!
I'll give them a little leniency about the IV because that least that requires some skill to administer and monitor.
I'll even give them a small amount of credit for all the heel sticks that they had to do to check his biliruben levels...
BUT $6,000...
That just seems a bit much to me. I bet the reason it costs so much is because they charge $73 per band-aid that they had to put on his foot after taking his blood.
I mean, I don't even want to know how much the bill would be for a kid who was actually "sick".
Thank heaven for insurance that paid the whole thing. If not, we'd be screwed.
1 comment:
this is precisely my point - why don't we EVER talk about reducing the cost of health care in the FIRST place? it's price gouging, i tell you. if they charged reasonable amounts, the health care chaos would be a whole lot less chaotic - right off the top.
i remember when my dad had by-pass surgery and they charged him $15 for every drinking straw he used. and that was like 7 years ago or something. God knows what they charge now.
insane.
Post a Comment