Silver medalist Greg Foster needs heart transplant

[tandfman]

It looks as if this thread is going wrong. :-(

[Conor Dary]

That didn't take long to go off the rails...

[schigh]

I believe that medicare and medicaid are essentially the same when it comes to heart transplant. I had a patient with an extremely rare disease who needed a heart transplant. Her insurance made us use a hospital that didn't have experience with this disease (essentially only Stanford and Mayo had any experience) even though Stanford accepted her insurance. While on the transplant list, she lost her job and her insurance. The hospital that the insurance required angrily called me once she lost her insurance and said she has to go to Stanford as they are the Medicare/Medicaid required hospital which I wanted her to go to in the first place. I had a lot of experiences with insurances pushing patients in directions that wasn't in their best interest. I'm happy to no longer be in private practice.

[lonewolf]

Since I am never sick or injured, I don't have a personal medical horror story but April 2014 a woman friend called me saying she had tripped in her home, smashing face first into a wall, had a nose bleed that would not stop and asked me to drive her to the ER.
She was still holding a blood towel to her nose when we entered the ER. I waited while staff took her into a treatment area for perhaps five minutes and the bleeding stopped, did a catscan, gave her a pill and sent her home.
She had enrolled in ACA in April and though she had insurance. Unfortunately, it did not kick in until 1 May 2014. The hospital billed her $3000 for ER and $380 for the scan.
That is about $36,000/hour for one nurse and scan. She is still contesting the charge.
Does that strike anyone else as exorbitant?

[guru]

She had enrolled in ACA in April and though she had insurance. Unfortunately, it did not kick in until 1 May 2014. The hospital billed her $3000 for ER and $380 for the scan.
That is about $36,000/hour for one nurse and scan. She is still contesting the charge.
Does that strike anyone else as exorbitant?

Pretty good chance she'd have had to pay out of pocket anyway. Most ACA deductibles are well north of $5,000, and those that arent have astronomical premiums. That's the beef everyone(including me) has with obamacare, and why medicare for all is no longer just a Bernie Sanders platform plank.

[user4]

Yes, it seems excessive however the bill refects all the year's absorbed costs of a large proportion of people that get ER service and never pay. What would a car rental cost if 1/2 the people that picked up a car never paid a dime?

[guru]

Yes, it seems excessive however the bill refects all the year's absorbed costs of a large proportion of people that get ER service and never pay.

Here in Cincinnati local taxpayers absorb the cost of hospital indigent care(and have since 1966 via taxpayer-approved levy).

https://www.hamiltoncountyohio.gov/U...mendations.pdf

[The Klingon]

It looks as if this thread is going wrong. :-(

I think that is the case with a lot of threads on this board.

[user4]

Here in Cincinnati local taxpayers absorb the cost of hospital indigent care(and have since 1966 via taxpayer-approved levy).

https://www.hamiltoncountyohio.gov/U...mendations.pdf

Seems like a reasonable way to handle emergency care for "indigents".

[schigh]

Part of the problem is the ER gets used for non-emergency care especially among the uninsured. It would be much better from both a cost and quality perspective if they used a primary care clinic (there are models of this that work).

Anyway, I know we've gone way off topic. My friend was at UCLA when Foster was. I remember him commenting often back then that Foster was the best athlete he ever saw. Just impressive to watch in practice as well as in races.