I am pretty sure there is one thing everyone in America can agree on: the health care system is broken. I don't know what the solution is and I don't know enough about the Affordable Care Act to know if it will help or hurt but I do know something has to be done.
This past few months has been an endless parade of doctors appointment, antibiotics and IVs as I have tried to get a very stubborn UTI infection to go away.
When I was first told I would have to do IV antibiotics I knew it would be expensive but I was in no way prepared for the bills that would come later.
In total I received 24 days of IV antibiotics (the first round of 10 days didn't work) and the total my insurance was billed for those 24 days, not including the numerous IV starts I had or visits to the doctor was $6,676.26. I could buy a car for that much!!! And less than half of it was my actual medicine, which cost about $75 per day. The other $200 a day came from "supplies". When I called to find out why on earth I was being charged so much for two saline syringes, an alcohol wipe and cap every day the answer I got was astonishing.
I was told that they was this particular company bills is on a daily patient average. That means patients like me who are using the bare minimum of supplies are paying for other patients who are using mass amounts of supplies (and probably more expensive ones too) because the daily price for service is based on an average.
I understand that this is how insurance works for the most part, everyone pays into the pool and then if you need it you can use and if not someone else gets to use your money but I couldn't believe that I was being charged $200 a day for supplies I wasn't using.
In addition to the cost of the IV medicine and ridiculously expensive supplies I had six IVs put in, four visits to my doctor (one long, 3 just for urine samples), a CT Scan and other Xrays done, total cost $13,560.72.
It seems so outrageous! That is almost six months of income for me. I am very grateful that I have insurance and luckily my cost is much, much lower than that but it seems so so crazy to me that the services I received can cost that much. I was watching the news last night and heard that on average in Utah the cost to have C-section delivery costs less than this, how is that even possible? I didn't stay in the hospital, I didn't have surgery, I didn't give birth to a child that needs cared for. I gave myself my own medicine at home everyday, I kept my IVs in as long a physically possible so I could have less of them and I didn't let them give me anymore "supplies" unless I actually needed them.
Every time I got to my doctors office to do a urine sample my insurance is charge $61.99. That is 60 bucks for me to pee in a cup and them to stick a piece of paper in it and read the results. The actual urine culture to decide which medicine will hopefully work to get rid of my infection is another $156. It just blows my mind.
Again I am really grateful that I have insurance, even if I do have a really high deductible, because I couldn't imagine facing more than $13,000 worth of medical bills.
Something has to be done about the way medicine is practiced and payed for in the country. I just wish I knew what the solution was and how I could help!!
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