Adventures In Health Care

By Ron Beasley

You may have noticed that I haven't been around the last few days. The reason is I had a medical adventure.  Yes, it involved an ambulance and a hospital and since I have no insurance the second part of the adventure is still to come.  What happened to me could have happened to anyone and what happened to me could have been fatal.  I am 63 years old and in pretty good health.  I had never been in an ambulance or admitted to a hospital prior to last weekend. My age was a pre-existing condition and made it impossible for me to get an individual policy.  We will look at how that will impact this adventure in a latter post when I have more information.

This Could Happen To You!

Last Thursday I woke up with a head cold.  It was your run of the mill head cold - sneezing, runny nose and throbbing sinuses. It continued through Friday.  I woke up Saturday morning and my head has cleared - good news and sooner than I anticipated.  About noon on Saturday I had the first indication that my head cold may have move to my chest - coughing and wheezing.  It continued to get worse as the day went on.  About 7:30 I decided to go to bed.  I woke up at 1:30 Sunday morning and I was unable to breath and called 911.  When the ambulance arrived the wonderful EMT's checked oxygen saturation and it was at 80, 90 is considered the minimum.  They put me on oxygen at once and they were very helpful in helping me take care of some things before taking me to the hospital.

Once I arrived at the hospital they took X-Rays and ran some other tests.  They determined it was not the flu or pneumonia but a virulent bacterial infection in my lungs.  They started anti-biotics, steroids for my lungs and bronchial treatments and I was breathing fairly well and my oxygen saturation was in the 90s within a couple of hours.  I was admitted to the hospital and had continued bronchial treatments until about three Sunday afternoon at which point I was given prescriptions for tetracycline and a bronchial inhaler and allowed to go home.  Except for the havoc the tetracycline has caused to my gastro-intestinal system recovery has been rapid.

Since I have no insurance I will be faced with an ambulance bill, a hospital bill and bills from two doctors.  In fact I received the ambulance bill today and at $731 was a little less than I had anticipated.  They will allow may to make payments of $35 a month.  Ironically by the time I have it payed off I will be on Medicare.  I have not received a bill from the hospital as yet but I have talked to them and they too are willing to come up with  a payment plan and will give me a discount because I am uninsured.

Before I turned 60 I was able to get an individual policy.  It was $1,200 a month and would at most payed about half .  Bottom line - This adventure will cost the equivalent of two or three months of insurance premiums and would have payed half the bill.

Update: 

Many thanks to my friend Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estés for cross posting this over at The Moderate Voice

Comments

[Kevin]

you better get a discount. the list price is 10x what they usually get. You are dreaming if you think the hospital bill is 3,600k. It will be more like $36,000 dollars, less say 6 grand.

whatever bill you get, offer to pay 20% to settle it. borrow the money somewhere to pay it and you will be ok.