Why YSK: Most hospitals send a summary bill (for example pharmacy: $5,000) hoping you’ll panic and just pay it. These are usually full of errors or huge markups. Before you pay anything, call the billing department and ask for an itemized bill with CPT codes. This will not only force a human to review it, but it also gives you the ability to spot BS. I tried this last year and the bill dropped by about 30% literally just because I asked, so don’t let them rip you off.
YSK you don’t get a medical bill in a civilised country.
Before I moved all I had to pay for was the parking if I parked at a hospital. Now I don’t even have to do that.
You can also negotiate directly with your medical provider. Ask if they have Financial Assistance programs you can apply for. Nonprofit hospitals in the US are required by law to have these programs and provide you with information when requested, and it frequently results in having your medical debt reduced or forgiven.
nonprofit hospitals
Jesus Christ…
YSK This is only relevant for the USA.
And some 3rd world countries. Let that sink in.
No shit
It’s funny how the errors never work in your favor.
Each error should be punishable by a 100x fine. I bet those pesky little extra charges would stop very quickly.
The games that hospitals and medical providers play with bills is unreal. My wife and I had to manage cancer treatment for one of our family members and the amount of incorrect bills, redundant bills and deluge of documents that were sent were from the hospital and various providers was fucking insane.
Little did they know that my wife is a machine when it comes to organizing and dissecting information. She would routinely crush those fuckers on the bills they were sending. They tried to bill for the same procedure FOUR times!
If the person getting the treatment had to handle all those bills while being incapacitated withe chemo and pain management they would have been screwed hard.
I do not have any hard evidence that all of the above was by design or by errors in the system but it sure seemed intentional.
The games that hospitals and medical providers play with bills is unreal.
As a medical provider at a hospital I can attest that we really have little to no control over any of your medical billing. Not saying that mistakes don’t happen, we are dealing with tens of thousands of people and billing departments usually have a lot of employee turnaround.
That being said, the vast majority of things like duplicate bills, incorrect bills, and redundant documentation is a byproduct of dealing with private insurance companies.
Even if we’ve already done a prior authorization the insurance company can suddenly decide that we didn’t provide the exact right information, or that we didn’t have the right type of referral, or even used the wrong color of ink pen… They can deny a claim, which usually will prompt the billing department to automatically send you guys a bill. At which point you guys call us understandably upset, which prompts us to start the whole authorization process over again.
Dealing with Medicare and especially Medicaid is so easy compared to private insurance, as they have a very clear motive to erect as many reasons to deny or delay coverage as possible. The entire reason the American healthcare system is so archaic and management heavy is because we have to deal with private insurance.
I can guarantee the medical providers hate the situation more than anyone. The day after the United ceo got assassinated was one of the more jolly days I’ve seen at the hospital for years. It was almost unreal to hear my older and very uptight professional colleagues crack jokes about a man being murdered in provider meetings.
Funny really. I’ve never recieved an itemised bill from a hospital visit.
#usacentricpost
Funny for me too. I’ve never received a bill from a hospital visit.
I have, or well from other doctors at least. Our universal healthcare doesn’t pay things they don’t consider important. Paying everything would undermine their bargaining power.
But those bills are always itemized.
Thanks for that, interesting to hear. It boggles my mind why anyone would pay ANY bill that isn’t itemised.
Tylenol, 2 pills: $250
So glad I got universal heath care
So what if my elective mri took 7 months? Atleast I don’t have medical debt!!!
American here.
I pay dearly for my health care and I still had to wait 6 months for an appointment with a specialist only to find out immediately after sitting down with him that I had been sent to the wrong place AND charged extra for it.
Don’t forget 1 grand gets you about 10 minutes of rush time to speak
Waits are just as long here in the US, PLUS we have to pay huge fees. System is fucked.
Completely opposite to the finnish experience.
When I broke my ulna and dislocated my wrist, I took an ambulance ride to the hospital, got three xrays, a cast, and two doses of fentanyl.
Told to return the next morning for post-cast xrays of the damage, by the end of that I was scheduled for surgery 8 days later. Sent home with a prescription for some non-opioid painkillers. Picked those up for around 20 euros.
Received four hours of hand surgery. Over a dozen titanium screws and a titanium plate put in. Given three pills of an opioid based painkiller for sleeping through the worst of the post-surgery pain. And another prescription for more non-opioids.
Weeks later, removal of the surgery bandages, stiyches. Xrays of how the bone was healing, followed by a consultation with a hand surgeon, and then a physical therapist on recovering motion in the wrist and fingers.
Months later one more round of xrays, and two more consultations with the physical therapist, and some follow-up with a hand surgeon due to the therapist noticing a lack of motion in my thumb, resulting in the discovery of some nerve-damage from the surgery (which I thankfully ended up recovering from).
By the end, I was sure I would max out the healthcare billing limit. This was the most expensive recovery from an injury I’d ever suffered. Finnish public health care is only allowed to bill you up to a maximum yearly amount, so as to never overload any one individual with debt. But it would still be a lot for me.
When I finally got an un-itemized bill, I was sure it was only the first of many.
Nope. It was the total. 87 euros and 40 cents.
Australia is some weird kind of limbo in between.
An electrophysiology study, cardiac ablation and a couple of carioversions cost $0 as a public patient but I could have gone private (I pay for private insurance) and it would have cost something.We do have that, too. (Private insurance and healthcare, I mean)
But most services even as a public patient do cost something here. Small stuff is usually a pittance, and if you say you can’t pay, they’ll either waive it or put you on an extremely generous payment plan. I know stuff like asking for painkillers in a waiting room is free though. Just the work of keeping track of that type of thing to charge for it, isn’t worth it.
But the more expensive stuff can add up. That’s why the maximum exists, but apparently even the extremely complex repair of my wrist, barely dents it.
You get painkillers while you wait? My experience is that’s not the norm in the U.S. There have been 3 or 4 times recently where something seemed really wrong and I debated going to the ER. I didn’t because I’d rather writhe in agony at home than have to do that in a waiting room for hours. Plus I never know if someone will actually take me seriously, and there would be a huge bill.
That decision was nuts by any normal standard, but I’m far from the only one who’s done something like that. Honestly, the fear of not getting any real help, yet again, is one of the worst parts.
In my case, the wrist was not possible to set, even with the cast. Some stuff was pulverized and due to the broken ulna, other stuff had slipped out of place. The cast was only to prevent further damage.
The fentanyl dose I was given upon the arrival of the ambulance wore off as I was waiting for xrays and then to see a hand surgeon to interpret the result, so I asked for more, and was given some.
After that I spent a little over a week in constant pain while waiting for the surgery. A dislocated wrist hurts like hell.
I can’t imagine spending I single moment during that week without any kind of pain relief.
Here in Canada, I recently took a big stumble while snowboarding, and my ankle hurt a lot. I went to the emergency room at the nearest hospital, got X-rays, and they confirmed I had broken my left inner malleolus. They referred me to the specialist clinic, and sent me home with a boot and crutches.
Next Monday, the specialist clinic tell me to show up the next morning (so on Tuesday). I waited pretty much the whole morning for the specialist to see me, he confirmed he needed to operate and put 2 screws in my ankle. The surgery happened later that evening.
Got a follow up 2 weeks later to remove the cast / surgery bandages, more X-rays and they put me back in the boot until the next follow-up a month later, after which I’ll probably start physiotherapy.
All of this cost me about 4$ in EV charging while I was at the ER, and maybe 20$ in medication (painkillers and Tylenol)? And I don’t think it could’ve been any faster. People love to shit on our healthcare system here, but in my experience it’s been amazing.
People love to shit on our healthcare system here, but in my experience it’s been amazing.
Same.
But in terms of quality of care, I have no complaints. The opposite. The nurses and doctors I interacted with were wonderful, and I made a point of telling them that. My surgeon in particular fought like hell for a result that would fully restore function in my hand. I was conscious for the surgery, so I got to sit in on the whole process.
That shit would bankrupt you here in the US.
What’s the max yearly amount?
Just under 800 euro iirc.
Here in Norway it’s ~340$. I usually blow through that in 1.5 months, so most of the year it’s “free”.
I think I’m half way through that already, but it doesn’t show up immediately on Helfo so I don’t know for sure.
Ulnar plate - and a dozen screws - from a fight, so somewhat like yours without the wrist damage.
X-rays and a cast, but since I brought no ID with me they needed me to call back with my health numbers for charting. Walked out without paying.
Back after a few weeks, and it’s not healing well. And that’s when they booked the surgery. They’d removed the cast for the x-rays so they sent me home with a sampler of T3 or so to get me through Christmas. Plate implanted on 28dec but in the hospital for a while because of really bad rejection and infection (almost lost it). Finally until control, I was sent homenwith a prescription for painkillers.
$0 aside from those meds (c$20). 🇨🇦
Each time I’ve asked for an itemized bill for hospital visits it’s only made the price higher…
Amerikkka moment…
Where I live, they refuse to give me an invoice at all…
Onces you get the itemized bill you should just not pay that too lol
Sounds absolutely illegal, or it should be, to overcharge you like you’re staying in some backwoods little hotel in Thailand or something.
America is so corrupt throughout its entire society. 🤦♂️
I found this non-profit from the Pluralistic blog. It’s there to help you find discounts that hospitals are obligated to give some patients, but aren’t easily found.
Here’s the post it came from.
https://pluralistic.net/2026/01/22/optimized-for-unoptimizability/
