Guess that hospital bill!

[Sum Dum Gai]

Here's the game, I lay out the details surrounding my recent hospital visits and you guys get to guess what the hospital bill will be.  Closest guess wins a mystery prize.

So, here's the background.  My primary care doc referred me to a local general surgeon because she wasn't sure whether the lump on my back was a cyst or a fibroma (benign tumor) but either way it was deep enough she wanted the surgeon to look at it.  I didn't make the appointment with the surgeon for a while, until the bump started getting reddish and hurting cause I'm an idiot like that.  I go in, he spends maybe 10 seconds looking at it, and says it's a sebacious cyst that's become infected and needs to come out pretty quick.  He also says it's a little too big and deep to remove in his office and it'll have to be done in the hospital to control the bleeding.

Enter hospital visit number one.  Operating room scheduled for one hour to remove right posterior flank mass with anesthesia yesterday morning.  I went in a day beforehand to have some blood tests in the hospital lab.  On the day of the surgery I went in, they put me under, and did the operation.  No real complications, but the cyst was bigger than expected (a bit smaller than a golf ball) and deep, so the surgeon couldn't close the incision.  He told me beforehand that he probably wouldn't be able too since I don't have much back fat, but he was going to try and close it as much as he could and put in a drain.  Instead he had to leave it completely open.  Incision is about 4 inches long and open about 2 inches wide.

Due to that they scheduled a home health nurse to come out and change the dressing this morning and show my wife how to do it.  She got it unpacked, cleaned it out, and while she was repacking the gauze I had a small seizure.  Nurse called the surgeon and he said to head straight into the ER and that he would call ahead and meet us over there.

Enter hospital visit number two.  Unscheduled ER visit for seizure following surgery.  They take me in, hook me up to the heart rate monitors and whatnot.  More blood work, CT brain imaging, whatever that thing is where they stick electrodes all over your body and measure how the impulses travel around, and a urine analysis.  Everything came back clean, and I don't have a history of seizures, so they sent me home and told the wife to keep an eye on me.  I was there for about 5.5 hours.

So, how much you figure the tab is at this point?

[Sum Dum Gai]

Total bill should be the same either way.  The only difference would be that right now I paid $200 for the surgery and $250 for the ER visit.  Dark's coffeeless pot shop would leave me with the whole bill.

[mollyanna58]

Operating room: $4400.
anesthesia: $1200. 
blood tests  $700.  
Surgeon: $2500. 
other fees: $1000.

Total: $9800.      

home health nurse: $170. 
ER: $3200. 
more blood work: $500. 
CT brain imaging: $2600.
electrodes all over your body: $1000.
urine analysis: $400. 

Total: $7870.


I'll guess $17,000. before insurance adjustments.

[Empire the P.A.]

$35,309.54. 


I had the same size cyst a couple of years ago and it was pretty gruesome. Especially for the family member that had to clean it out every day.  

[Deleted]

When it is all said and done: $43,500

After the insurance settle it: $26,250

[The Walk of the Penguin Mich]

Hmmmm.......were you in the hospital overnight?

If not, I'm guessing about $16k for the hospital bill.  Overnight, I think about $22k.

For the ER visit, another $8k.

[Deleted]

80K total.

[weltschmerz]

Those are some pretty big numbers. Guess MY last hospital bill.  Came to ER for bloody emesis and pain. Turns out I had 3 massive bleeding ulcers, one esophageal, one gastric, one duodenal, and I was bleeding out. Had 3 gastroscopies, colonoscopy, bloodwork 6-8 times a day, morphine every three hours, mutiple IVs, multiple scans, transfusions, in intensive care for about a week, then transferred to a ward for three days.

[Deleted]

$0 - you spoke Spanish to them and said you had no ID.

[Tiny]

Mar 2, 2013 22:53:08 GMT -5 mollyanna58 said:

Operating room: $4400.
anesthesia: $1200. 
blood tests  $700.  
Surgeon: $2500. 
other fees: $1000.

Total: $9800.      

home health nurse: $170. 
ER: $3200. 
more blood work: $500. 
CT brain imaging: $2600.
electrodes all over your body: $1000.
urine analysis: $400. 

Total: $7870.


I'll guess $17,000. before insurance adjustments.

I like this estimate - but I suspect it doesn't include the additional people who may  bill you separately - the anesthesiologist and maybe someone additionally on the surgeon's team. So, I'm thinking 17K is about 5K too low - that brings it to 22K and then there's the 10% guesstimate amount to add - so I'm gonna round up to the total before insurance adjustments to $25,000.

[Deleted]

Mar 3, 2013 10:12:40 GMT -5 @mmc said:

$0 - you spoke Spanish to them and said you had no ID.

Too funny.

[Sum Dum Gai]

$0 - you spoke Spanish to them and said you had no ID.

Ha!  I joke about it often, but sadly I don't speak Spanish.  I wonder if you can make up a language and completely refuse to tell them where you're from?

[The Walk of the Penguin Mich]

I just dug out the hospital bill from my last hip revision in October.  Total billed costs, $96,590.  I was released from the hospital 46 hours after surgery, so spent 2 nights there (standard is 3-4 nights).  Insurance company paid $57,954.  This was my cheapest bill after surgery, and I was in the hospital the shortest amount of time.

These are the costs that Swedish billed my insurance.
Room costs..$4660
Drugs...        2857
Anesthesia..  3737
Lab...           2200
OR...            3665

My surgeon charged $6500.  Anesthesiologist charged $2900.

I had a lot of other services that do not pertain to Dark, like PT, OT, radiology, etc.

Interesting point, the charge for the new hunk of metal in my hip...$57,019.

[Sum Dum Gai]

Stop lying to me proboards!!!  Where are the new posts?

[mmhmm]

LOL, Dark!  There aren't any, hon.  Someone had a question and asked it using MODS ONLY.  You're seeing the numbers for those posts, but you won't see the posts.

[Sum Dum Gai]

Gotcha.  I was starting to think the pain meds were really screwing with my head.

[weltschmerz]

Mar 3, 2013 2:11:33 GMT -5 weltschmerz said:

Those are some pretty big numbers. Guess MY last hospital bill.  Came to ER for bloody emesis and pain. Turns out I had 3 massive bleeding ulcers, one esophageal, one gastric, one duodenal, and I was bleeding out. Had 3 gastroscopies, colonoscopy, bloodwork 6-8 times a day, morphine every three hours, mutiple IVs, multiple scans, transfusions, in intensive care for about a week, then transferred to a ward for three days.

They did send me a bill for $13.00. Yes, thirteen bucks. For the phone.

I knew you were sitting on the edge of your seats, wondering. 

[mmhmm]

Nah, dark.  Your head's just fine!  I just hope the meds are handling your pain adequately.  That's a pretty painful surgery.

[Sum Dum Gai]

They did send me a bill for $13.00. Yes, thirteen bucks. For the phone.

LOL!  I was going to guess $20 for something totally random, like parking.

[Deleted]

I'm betting the hospital will bill for $30,000.  They will probably accept $3000 from your insurance company.

I pulled the numbers from a hat, but not the percentage negotiated by the insurance company.  They accepted $30,000 for the $300,000 surgery on DH last summer.

[susanb]

Mar 3, 2013 14:20:56 GMT -5 mmhmm said:

LOL, Dark!  There aren't any, hon.  Someone had a question and asked it using MODS ONLY.  You're seeing the numbers for those posts, but you won't see the posts.

Unless you are checking out proboards from your iPhone.  Mod only posts are appearing there, at least I was able to read the entire conversation between you and the other poster on my iPhone that I am not able to read from my laptop.  

[unrepentant_spendthrift]

Mmhmm, if your conversation with Steve is MODS ONLY, how come I can see it? And steve, I think you do have a point. Inelegantly stated, but a point nevertheless..

[unrepentant_spendthrift]

That explains it.. I'm on the iPhone app

[mrsdutt]

46000$

[mmhmm]

Really, susanb!  I had no idea that was happening, and I'll bet ya virgil doesn't know that, either.  I'll let him know they're visible to those using mobiles.  Thanks for the information!

[mmhmm]

Thanks, again, folks!  I've let virgil know there's a glitch.

[Deleted]

Mar 3, 2013 17:52:31 GMT -5 unrepentant_spendthrift said:

That explains it.. I'm on the iPhone app

Same here, I was able to read the whole conversation on my iPhone app.

[mollyanna58]

I can't see the mods only conversation, but Steve is listed as the last poster on when you look  at the thread title.

[Peace Of Mind]

My guess would be closer to $50K/$60K.  DH had a double hernia operation a couple of years ago and it was $30K.  I'm guessing medical costs are higher in your area than ours and you had two procedures. 

I am concerned that you had a seizure though.  I hope those tests were thorough and it was just from stress or a reaction to the meds they were giving you.  Is that common?  A seizure for no reason?

How are you healing? 

[Sum Dum Gai]

So, what was the secret conversation about?