If my leg was broken and I was not being taken care of in the first hour at most, people would sure start to remember my leg was broken.

Unless, of course, the hospital was inundated with an outbreak of some virus that turned everyone into zombies and didn't have time.

"She's not paying for waiting...She's paying for the assessment she received." said Rick Rhine, the hospital's vice president in charge of billing.

Even if what he said was true, I've seen more emotions emanating from maggots, than this excuse for a human. He sees nothing wrong with someone waiting 19hrs in an emergency room.

$160 for a couple of minutes evaluation by a nurse? Where does all the money go? Why are hospitals always in financial trouble?

If the government ever takes over health care we will look back on this and reminisce about the good old days when waiting for 19 hours only cost $162.

I'd suggest seeing a lawyer about it. I fought with a hospital over 2 years, while the out come wasn't the greatest, I would have been better consulting a lawyer before it went to court.

@sir_pantsalot: Yeah and your justification for making such asinine statements is what?

People are so quick to scream bloody murder at insurance companies. I think Doctors and their support staff are just as bad, if not worse, than greedy insurance companies. Sure the school is expensive and they need to repay it, but once they pay off school their rates never go down to a reasonable rate.

If you have or had student loans, I'm sure you voluntarily took a paycut once those loans are paid off.@AngrySicilian:

@johnfrombrooklyn: I paid off my loans and make a decent salary, I'm not looking to fortune off the suffering of others.

I can relate: my wife and were charged for a physical because the Dr's. office had no insurance code for a Dr. one on one chat. Yes, rather than tell us we had to pay to talk to the Dr., they billed our insurance company for a non existant physical because they didn't have the proper code! We refuse to pay anything for the physiscal we never had.

@AngrySicilian: I can view the real world. Name one thing the government does that is cost effective. What part of the government do you enjoy dealing with?

An assessment worth $162?

I always thought an assessment was something like this: "Is she breathing? Yes. Is she bleeding? Nope.

No room for her!"

She received a service (the evaluation), why isn't she obligated to pay for it? She knew that when she went into the hospital, uninsured, that she would have to pay for the services she received. Just because she decided to leave before the service was finished doesn't relieve her of her obligation to pay for what she got. It's like going to a restaurant, ordering your drink, then deciding that they wait is too long for the entree and leaving without paying for your drink. Yeah, it would be nice if the restaurant were to comp the drink, but they certainly aren't obligated to do so. What if they comp'd everyone's drinks when the wait was long? Not so good for the bottom line.

@sir_pantsalot: I like driving on the roads that take me to work that the government paves and maintains for me. That's one thing. It would not be cost effective for everyone to get out there and lay down a little piece of asphalt in a community effort.

Parkland has great doctors, but not enough to handle their triage.

If you think the triage in M*A*S*H looks packed on TV, you should see Parkland's.... You literally have to wait in a line, to wait in a line, just to see a doctor.

Also, I read some of the comments on that article. Some stated something to the effect of, "if you think this is bad, just wait until we have socialised medicine." Here's a newsflash for people who don't live in the Dallas area: Parkland is the place where the uninsured go so they CAN get health care.

If you have health insurance, you wouldn't be visiting Parkland. You would be visiting RHD, Plano Presbyterian, or Trinity Medical Center.

I feel bad for this woman, but the fact is that Parkland needs more funding to get the doctors to handle their triage. And since most of their clients are the uninsured, they depend heavily on the state in order to stay out of the red.

@AngrySicilian:
Yeah, that doesn't make any sense at all. They charge a lot because school was expensive and they put a lot of work into getting to where they are. Just because their loans are paid off doesn't mean their services are worth any less.

@Pylon83: This is more like the restaurant charging you for asking how many people are in your party.

You know...I recently went to an Emergency room for a pretty nasty cut and I don't wish to sound racist or insensitive to people who really need care. BUT, I frankly thought I walked into a South American Clinic rather than an American Emergency room.

I would be willing to bet that many were there without legal documentation or at the very least insurance. This being said, I don't blame the hospital too much if they at least try to break even for all the money they lose. Unfortunately, it is the person with Insurance that gets to pay and wait in ever increasing lines.

@sir_pantsalot: My parents are in their 60's and they live in Korea where they have state sponsored insurance (Universal coverage for those who hate the term). Last time I spoke to my mother, she said she was paying about $100/month for coverage, and she went to doctors all day everyday (almost literally), paying $5 copay for each visit. My mother suffers from hypothyroidism and she has to see specialists and she's paying next to nothing to see them.

I may be wrong about some details, but please provide more conclusive evidence than "I can view the real world".

@Pylon83: This is more like she went to the restaurant, spoke with the seating host, spent 19 hours waiting in the lobby, and then got a bill for the time she spent talking to the host. She didn't even make it to a table for water.

Parkland should post a sign that says "Triage fee, $160" on the door.

@AngrySicilian: I have seen road construction projects go on for 10 plus years and they seem to never end. That would be fabulous when it is your health of life that they have do desire to take care of just as long as they get to keep billing the tax payers.

Driving on the roads is not dealing with a government agency. Which government agency do you enjoy dealing with?

@johnfrombrooklyn: Doctors are not the only ones that take student loans. Doctors complain at how expensive their loans are, and never once think about the amount of money they make.

Amber says she's not going to pay the bill.

If it came down to it I think I'd rather take the hit to my credit than to pay $162 to be ignored for 19 hours.

@sir_pantsalot: If the government aids in health care (I don't believe in taking it over, but I think they have a responsibility to the people to make it more affordable - but that's a different debate all together), then Parkland could share the load with other hospitals in the area.

Parkland does not turn people away when they don't have health insurance, and because of that they bear the burden of the poor and uninsured.

If someone is visiting Parkland, chances are the government is already footing the bill.

@vastrightwing: Your doctor's office is jerking you (or rather your insurance company) around. There are several different CPT codes for office visits.

@sir_pantsalot: The Census Bureau has always been very helpful, so has the state board of elections. I work in a politics related field, so those are the government agencies I deal with most regularly. The Cook County Assessors office (Chicago) has also never let me down.... I could go on and on...

If it takes that long to see a person with a broken leg, or not see them in this case, I'd dispute the billing on my credit over and over. They will screw it up and not send in their part one of these times.

@Alex7575: I have to agree with Ms. Milbrodt on this one. Waiting times in hospitals are a necessary evil, but at some point the line is crossed from inconvenience to outright disregard for another person's time. Forcing someone to wait 19 hours to just get vitals checked, and then charging an obscene amount of money indicates an enormous lack of organization among the hospital staff, and a callous lack of respect for another human being. I imagine only a portion of the $160 was for the nurse's time: the bulk of the cost was probably what the hospital charged her as rent for the "privilege" of sitting in the waiting room.

@sir_pantsalot: How many roads do you see out there that are finished and operational vs the ones that are in construction?

If one is to believe what you're saying this country would still be using steam engines.

Do your research, before you ride your party line.

I hate to tell her BUT:

When my son was born Johnston Willis pulled this. He was a newborn and they sent him home early with jaundice. We had issues the first night and decided to take him to our doctor. After paying the copay the 'weekend specialist' rolled in and stated I kid you not: "I dont do newborns". They refunded the co-pay on the spot and apologized.

We went to Johnston Willis Hospital and signed into the emergency room around 10 am or so. We had been up all night with the new baby and were worn out. They put us into a room and left us there. We waited until sometime around 5:45pm when a nurse informed us that Chippenham hospital had newborn capabilities. They stated that they were unable to do anything and to come back Monday.

Needless to say I was pissed off. They had also done "vitals" on my son. It took three untrained nurses 45 minutes to figure out how to do it and then an older nurse came in and demonstrated how to do it for them. That was fabulous. On the way out the door an old lady took one look at my son and said "ah jaundice huh? Just put him under a sun light and he will be fine he just isnt cooked enough". I went to the store bought a light and my son was fine in a short while. (We had had rainy cold weather when he was born)

The hospital sent a bill for the visit. I explained what happened and that they had released him early with issues and had KNOWN there was an issue from his own chart. They would not work with me. I will not ever pay for services that never occurred. They know that they had no doctors on staff and could not handle the situation. They should have told us when we walked in but chose not to.

V

@Pylon83: I agree that its not a common thought. Their services aren't worth any less. I argue that they are over-charging. Just because you'll pay 85 thousand dollars to receive an implanted heart defibrillator doesn't mean that they should charge that much. Putting people first sometimes means you have to set aside greed.

@vdragonmpc: wow I'm sorry you had this experience. Every time, not exaggerating, every time I go to the Doctor I also get the run around. It seems like the Doctors offices are an arcade where they want you to run around and swipe your game card (insurance card) at all the machines until you are broke.

@stacye: Parkland doesn't need more funding, it needs to be able to turn away, without fear of legal or financial retribution, people who show up at the ER to get their 4 kids checked out for their yearly physical, and then leave with no intention of paying. Parkland is a dumping ground for people who don't want to pay for medical care. I've gone to a Care Now and always been seen within 15-20 minutes of showing up. Now it wasn't for a broken bone, but because I paid for my service (I have insurance, but with a very high deductible), it was prompt and helpful.

@sir_pantsalot: Let's look at this another way: What is your proposed solution?

@AngrySicilian: I have several friends who are either doctors or dentists. I usually join them to poker games (which I don't buy in because the buy in is usually in the $500 mark) and if you hear them talk, it's pitiful, they all bilk their insurance companies, and they all agree that it's ok to do so because Practice Insurance (I don't know what they really call it) is always so exorbitant and unfair to them (the poor kids).

AngrySicilian has a point, I'm tired of doctors crying how "hard life is" while making more money than double your average graduate.

I would fight the bill with the hospital as well. I'm not paying for a service that wasn't fully rendered. The percentage of which actually was is debatable. I would agree to no more than 50% of the bill. Settle for that and call it a day - everyone has far greater concerns in their life than this.

Unless there was a HUGE sign (preferably in English and Spanish) saying "Please note that you WILL be charged a minimum of $162 just for speaking to the nurse, whether or not you ultimately receive treatment".... then I absolutely would not pay that bill.

Without notice of the charge, under that argument that "you got a service, you have to pay for it," the hospital could try to charge $162, or $1600, or $16000 for speaking to the nurse! And then when people complain, they would just say "you got a service, you have to pay for it."

No, when you go in a restaurant, get seated, but never get your food or drinks, you don't pay an "assessment" charge even thought the host/hostess "assessed" the number in your party when they seated you at a table of the appropriate size. If you walk into an airport to buy a plane ticket on the spot, but decide against buying, you don't pay an "assessment" because the ticket agent "assessed" the available flight options. Granted, a nurse assessment is a bit more specialized, but it's basically a "is this person going to die if we don't treat him/her this second?" quick look. There is NO justification for charging $162 for that.

@Shark1998: Actually according to a recent study it isn't the un-insured who are causing ER overcrowding.

Just saw an article this morning:
[www.nj.com]

@sir_pantsalot: Name one insurance company you enjoy dealing with.

Yes, the American government has an enormous capacity to screw things up, but that doesn't mean the baby needs to go out with the bath water. Government-run and government-controlled healthcare can work; it works fantastically in other countries.

When I moved to the UK, I hadn't even started paying taxes yet when I fell down the stairs to our flat and broke my foot. I was taken to hospital, waited 20 minutes to see a doctor, and received brilliant follow-up care over the next 3 months. It was so refreshing that the first thing they said to me when I was rolled into the ER wasn't, "Can I see your insurance card?" but rather "What happened and where does it hurt?"

Government-run healthcare may or may not work in the U.S., but private healthcare certainly isn't working either.

@Alex7575: I'm pretty sure hospitals are always in financial trouble because of people not paying their hospital bills...

@Alex7575: I didn't come up with that analogy. You can't compare roads with health care of human beings.

We can thank the private sector for giving us better technologies than the steam engine not the government. If we were left to rely only on the government the steam engine would be a very expensive technology.

I think we could have a big improvement in our health care system if we could limit petty law suits by lawyers and if hospitals were non-profit like they used to be. Maybe even have cases reviewed by a panel of doctors to see if there was wrong doing before a Dr can be sued.

@sir_pantsalot:

Hey *your* government might be crap at running things - but only because people who don't believe in the power of government are in charge. It's a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy, there. Appointing incompetents to head things up isn't just a useful policy for rewarding lackeys, it also helps to drive the party line.

In my socialist bubble up here, I have been to the emergency room for a trivial thing and got treated within an hour. My grandfather had a heart attack and was treated within minutes and had bypass surgery *the next day*. Cost to me and my family: about a hundred bucks, and that was to get cable TV in his room.

I would think that the recent Wall Street collapse would've shaken your faith in the "invisible hand" of free-marketism, but it's good to see you're keeping the faith.

@vdragonmpc: I got one for you too, we lost our second baby in a miscarriage, wife was 6 months pregnant. To make a looooong story short, on that day, we lost our second baby, no doctors could give us a definite answer as to why we lost our baby (it was an infection, that's all we know) and we came home to a $12,000 bill (both my wife and I have PPO insurance).

End result: no baby + no answer - $12,000.00

The doctor who was in charge (the one who delivered our baby) told us to go talk to our doctor when we asked him about what happened.

So yeah, I have a very, very, very low opinion of doctors.

@Alex7575: Doctors complain at how expensive their loans are, and never once think about the amount of money they make.

When I lived in Harlem my roommate was a pediatrician. ("Lived in Harlem" and "roommate" may be hints here as to income level.) She paid about $2100 a month in student loan repayments. I MADE about $2100 a month, after taxes. So sure, her income was WAY up there, but her pocket money : loan payment ratio was about the same as mine.

@AngrySicilian: The big problem for doctor's isn't necessarily their student loans. Yes, they get out of school with a quarter of million dollars in debt but their biggest fees are for malpractice. It's starting to get out of control in some states.

@amysisson:
You go into a hospital well aware that they charge for virtually everything. You sit down with a nurse, fill out all the necessary paperwork, they evaluate you and send you back to wait. You received a specialized, professional service that is completely distinguishable from being seated in a restaurant. In a restaurant there is no professional service rendered when you are seated, and you don't expect to be billed for that service. I find it hard to believe that someone would go into a hospital and not expect to be billed for a service rendered by a nurse. The fact that the OP is angry about the overall level of service received doesn't render the service provided by the nurse irrelevant, and she should pay it. People who refuse to pay hospital bills run up costs for the rest of us.

@parkavery: I think this goes back to lawyers. In the UK if you bring a lawsuit against someone and you don't win you pay for their legal and lawyer fees. In the states any piss ant lawyer can bring a lawsuit against any doctor and if they lose then no big deal.

@Alex7575: This makes the practice insurance outrageous.

@EtoilePB: A little off topic but as someone that was born and raised in harlem but cant afford to live there anymore, they priced people out of that area. Manhattan is only for the rich now (or people that can cram 3 other bodies into a 2 bedroom apt)

@Alex7575:

I have hypothyroidism, and I don't have to see specialists, but if I did, it would be great to only pay $5 a whack.

Assuming I didn't have to wait 19 hours, however.

@sir_pantsalot: This is just ignorant. Government-run health care is better than privatized health care, period. Every comparable country with a national system has better outcomes than we do, for less money. The VA health system gives the best care in the country, more efficient and safer than anything else. Profit-driven health care gets you two things: One, it prevents people from getting primary and preventive care. Two, it leads to overtreatment once someone is really bad off.

There is no rational reason to oppose national universal health coverage in the U.S. unless you are the CEO of a for-profit insurance company, or are suicidal, or are a member of some sort of death cult.