Why I Hate Hospitals and Money

I was in the hospital for five days in January of this year. This is how I got there:

Late on a Friday night, I started experiencing some severe lower abdominal pain. I had had an ovarian cyst burst. I had never had a cyst burst before, so I went to Urgent Care the next morning thinking I had appendicitis.

Me: “I think I may have appendicitis.”
Doctor: “Well, you have no other symptoms, other than your pain, of appendicitis so you’re going to need to go to the Emergency Room for X-Rays because we don’t have that equipment here”

Great. Add another $150 co-pay on top of the $50 one for Urgent Care.

So with tears streaming down my face (I have an irrational fear of hospitals, doctors, blood etc.) I drive to the emergency room. I’m there until 12:00 that night. They put me on an IV, did a CT Scan, and a rather uncomfortable ultrasound. Ladies, you know what I’m talking about. To top it off, that ultrasound was given by a male doctor about my age. I’m waiting in my bed for the results, when another doctor walks in.

Me: “So….?”
Doctor: “Well, you don’t have appendicitis, but we do see an abscess of fluid. We’re going to need to do surgery to see what it is. Unfortunately we don’t have a surgeon on duty, so we’re going to need to ambulance you to Banner Baywood and they’ll do the surgery tonight”
Me: “We can’t drive there ourselves?” (Dustin was, of course, with me this whole time)
Doctor: “No once we’ve admitted you it has to be by ambulance.”

Great. How much is that going to cost me? After another hour of waiting, I arrive by ambulance at Banner Baywood hospital. They put me in a room with a very old sick lady and tell me that someone will see me in the morning. What?!? Really? I just wanted to get this over with and go home.

The next morning, I see the surgeon. He says to put me on antibiotics, and he’ll see me the next day.

The next day he drops in for 5 seconds to tell me he’ll see me the next day.

The next day I get another CT Scan and don’t see the surgeon, or any doctor, at all. (Note: I was promised results of the scan, and that I could go home if they were clear)

The next day, I finally hear from the OBGYN doctor and he said that the fluid had not cleared up but as long as I felt fine I was free to go, but I have to be officially discharged from the surgeon.

Finally, by the next morning I had had it. I had felt absolutely fine since the 2nd day. (I had had a blessing the night before) I stand by the nurse as she calls the surgeon to have me discharged. I’m told I have to wait until he can come see me. He doesn’t come until 1:30, which means that I’m charged for another day at the hospital. How convenient. He prescribes me antibiotics (the same dosage I had been on during my stay) and tells me I can go home. (WHY didn’t they just do this first?)

My theory? The hospital saw a young naïve couple and decided to get all the money out of us that they could. We owed the hospital $2500, the surgeon $200, the OBGYN $200, the ambulance $150. (Not to mention the $200 in co-pay fees I had already paid) I told the hospital to please bill me and I would figure out a payment plan.

Unfortunately, the hospital had my apartment number wrong, so I did not receive any of their bills. My first call regarding any of this was in March from a collections company. I explained that I had not received anything, and agreed to pay them $100 a month.

In June, I decided that I wanted to get pregnant. I went to a new OBGYN clinic, and related what had happened earlier in the year. I asked her professional opinion, and she said “The Emergency Room should have recognized this as a burst cyst, prescribed you antibiotics and sent you home. If the conditioned worsened, then you would have had to go back.” Theory confirmed. If they would have done their job, I wouldn’t have a huge hospital bill, and I wouldn’t be in the following situation.

Which brings me to today. Today I got a call from the collections company.
Me: “Hello?”
Caller: “ Is this Erin Watson?”
Me: “Yes”
Caller: “This is (some jerk) from HealthCare collections. I’m calling to let you know that if you don’t pay off your balance with us by the first of December, it will report as a delinquent amount to the credit bureau and remain on your report for 7 years.”
Me: “What? I’ve made my payments with you on time every month!”
Caller: “Yes, I see that, but we just added this new policy.”
Me: “That is really unfair, I’ve worked really hard to keep my credit up and my report clean! (I have a 725)
Caller: “Yes, but this is our policy”
Me: “If I would have known about this policy from the beginning, I would have figured out some way to have it paid off by now”
Caller: “Yes, but we just added this new policy. I suggest you borrow the money from someone or…”
Me: “I will call you back”

And I hung up.

This is the edited version of the conversation. I usually am never rude, or yell at anybody. But today I caved and used some very choice words.

So that’s it. That’s why I hate hospitals and money. If I don’t come up with $1165 in 13 days, my credit will be ruined all for an unnecessary hospital stay.