this post was submitted on 30 Sep 2023
118 points (96.1% liked)

Asklemmy

43939 readers
576 users here now

A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions

Search asklemmy ๐Ÿ”

If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!

  1. Open-ended question
  2. Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
  3. Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
  4. Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
  5. An actual topic of discussion

Looking for support?

Looking for a community?

~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_A@discuss.tchncs.de~

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
 

Not on a theoretical level, but how would you practically have to pay costs, access specialist doctors?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[โ€“] chiliedogg@lemmy.world 8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

In the US, the reality is that we don't know.

Now that I'm insured, healthcare actually costs more than when I wasn't. And I'm not talking about premiums - I'm talking about copays and deductibles being non-negotiable.

For instance, I thought I may have hurt my ear scuba diving a few weeks ago, so I went to the ER to see if my eardrum was perforated (ENT visits can take months to get).

They told me it was, had me pay a $300 copay, prescribed me $130 eardrops my insurance wouldn't cover, and referred me to an ENT.

When I finally got to an ENT, they told me that my eardrum wasn't every perforated and the ER did didn't know what they were talking about.

Then I got an additional bill from the ER for another $1800 because my insurance company refused to pay the bill.

Had I been unisured the hospital bill would have been maybe $250 all-in after negotiations, but since I have insurance it's $2100 for a wildly wrong diagnosis that ended up costing me another $430 in specialists and prescriptions.

[โ€“] Crabhands@lemmy.ml 3 points 1 year ago