Assuming nobody else is at fault
They’ll fix everyone at the ER.
But you get a ridiculous bill, then likely “settle” for a much lower amount of if you’re truly pennyless, you just never pay it and eventually the hospital gives up and uses it as a tax write off.
It’s a shit system
I’ve been telling people that the notion that the ER lets poor people die in the US is false; instead, they make you wish you did.
ER patches you up, you get a large bill, you declare bankruptcy, life goes on.
The question you should ask is, what happens if you have no insurance and you develop a serious chronic illness.
Something nobody else has mentioned her eis that even if a hostpital is required to provide care regardless of your insurance, in practice you’re not unlikely to get a lower standard of care if you have no insurance or even if you have insurance that’s seen as “inferior” like Medicaid.
Folks without insurance or with “lesser” insurance tende to be poorer. More likely to be seeking pain meds to use recreationally. More likely to be disabled, overweight, etc. More likely to be racially discriminated against or, if white, seen as “white trash”. So, having no insurance or inferior insurance itself may get you written off as “probably lying” or otherwise somehow undeserving of the same level of care.
And if that’s an issue for life-threatening injuries, it’s… probably much more so an issue for more routine kinds of medical care. It’s literally not even an option to self pay in some cases. And I don’t just mean because it’s so expensive. Even if you did say “I don’t have insurance, but my bank account has $100 million in it and I can use my debit card,” you may be told you’re not allowed to self pay.
Poor people without insurance are often sent to alternative care facilities specifically for poor people without insurance. And as you might expect, those places are often very understaffed. So you can expect longer wait times and more rushed care.
Poor people without insurance also often don’t get treated early when a problem isn’t a huge deal for fear of accruing medical debt. So they’re also more likely to end up unexpectedly needing a trip to the ER because that minor infection that, had they gotten it treated a week ago, would have been taken care of with a round of antibiotics has now spread to some much more vital organ.
Adding to this, there is no requirement that hospitals ensure that you are safe when they release you from their care so sometimes people who can’t pay for care and have dementia, uncontrolled or poorly controlled mental health issues, or are otherwise vulnerable get left at the nearest bus stop. It even makes the news sometimes because someone got dropped off only wearing a hospital gown at night in winter.
Edit to add link to an example: https://www.cnn.com/2018/01/11/health/baltimore-hospital-patient-video-bus-stop-trnd/index.html
I can’t speak for every hospital since I’ve only worked at a few but this is rare. Some places might still be doing it, dumping people who can’t be placed or don’t have insurance, but EMTLA was put in place to combat that stuff and the lawsuit and probably fines would make this a bad move. We’ve kept people where I work for months because we can’t place them or psych won’t take them. At minimum they’re going to a nursing home.
Love how the CEO pretends to care about what happens. The executives are the reason it does.
“Well, we never told them to make that the policy. We simply decreased wages and staffing enough that it was the natural conclusion to our decisions.”
You tell the hospital to pound sand when they send a five or six figure bill. Very few in the US have $20,000 or so just lying around. The hospital knows that, the court knows that, even the latest version of FICO knows that.
You can ask for an itemized bill, amd usually a bunch of stupid charges go away. You can try and arrange a payment plan.
But really, after a certain point, it doesn’t matter if the bill is $10,000 or $1,000,000, there’s just no money, and there will not ever be that money, and they can cry wage garnishment until their ears bleed but it almost never happens - because there’s no money.
You go to the hospital and get a bill that puts you into debt for the rest of your life. Maybe you do a crowdfunding campaign to cover part of it
You get care, and then bills and then bankrupt.
So that’s why you guys don’t save?
And even if you do have insurance, the larger companies are being caught auto denying claims (supposed to be an instance company employed doctor reviewing your case and medical history to make determination on if treatment was medically necessary).
They deny first and automatically put patients at a disadvantage. If you do have the skill/time to fight, you’ll likely still only get to a point where you partially pay - and most are too polite/afraid to even appeal a denial in the first place (which is exactly what they are counting on).
Go into enough debt that you wish you just died
deleted by creator
life threatening means no insurance will be necessary so why bother
