Cut my thumb, had an NP at an ER clean and glue it together, 30 minutes altogether, $2000 bill, top Blue Cross/Blue Shield plan brought that down to $1200. For brief first aid a LPN or medical technician could do. No medicine was applied, just cleaned it and glued it. I just resigned myself to paying it because the $1200 seemed like the whole services and I believed there was no way my insurance ran it. Or I thought the hospital did something wonky with level of care manipulation by putting me in a room within the hospital called an "urgent care" and bill for services other than a hospital...I was going to call the ombudsman for medicaid fraud because I have badass social welfare policy degree and gg no re. Nope. Insurance ran it, and the $1200 was after my insurance ran it.
Months later, working a hard case at the hospital led to some serious chest pains, numbness in my arms, and feelings of impending doom. I get in my car and drive to the VA hospital, tell them I feel like I'm experiencing symptoms of cardiac arrest. Go get an EKG done in gurney in the VAMC emergency room hallway (high quality government healthcare) and hours later they tell me I have normal measurements, and say it was probably due to stress. They tell me to try to take it easy because stress can actually kill you through your heart. I didn't know that a anxiety and a panic attack could make a human have a heart attack but a nurse had anxiety induced cardiac arrest and she has been gone about a month now.
I learned from this episode that now that I have health insurance I can't get healthcare at the VA for free. But the VA gets much better deals for services than Christ Hospital Network through Anthem. EKG was about $500.
I'm walking my dogs and am on a hill and bite it hard. Rolled my ankle, it swells to the size of a grapefruit. Wife says go to hospital, I say FU 50/50 its a sprain and I can do the same treatment for it at home. If I can't bear weight in two days I go to the hospital with a suspected break. I can't go to the VA and get an x-ray for free and if I have to pay hundreds I'll see what happens if I leave it alone first. Maybe if I leave it alone it will go away. It was a sprain, and I was able to treat it with over the counter stuff. Three weeks later, about a month ago, I'm getting into an Uber in Siesta Key, Florida, to go back to the resort, and I roll my ankle on the uneven concrete. "Want to go to the hospital?" NO. JUST LEAVE ME ON THE BEACH AND I WILL BURY IT IN SAND FOR A MONTH WHILE IT HEALS.
A few days ago I get a nasty ear infection with severe debilitating pain. The paranoid healthcare worker is like "you diagnosed that guy with new Hep A last week and he had disgusting hygiene....are you sure you washed your hands well enough when you left his room...?" Meanwhile I'm looking at amoxicillin on chewy.com.....
https://www.chewy.com/s?rh=brand_facet%3AThomas+LabsI asked a coworker to prescribe something for me and that seems to be the best solution....work at a hospital and ask friends to do healthcare services for you in your office...just don't go to a hospital. If you can't work at a hospital then chewy.com... fish medications require no prescription and you can just buy liquid amoxicillin etc...
Or if you're very poor or work for Congress you can get Medicaid lol.
This post was edited by Skinned on Oct 21 2018 09:39am