Adventures Among the Uninsured III

The bills are now starting to roll in from my wife’s gall-bladder surgery:
Emergency room- $2300
Doctors (two bills) $3800 for both

The surgeon did knock of $1000 off her bill since my wife was uninsured. She mentioned that self-pays are usually billed at higher rates than those with insurance. I was surprised as I assumed the opposite might be true, since there would be no insurance company to “gouge”.

We haven’t received any bills from the hospital itself or from the radiologists, which is where the bulk of the billing would come from.

Our medical sharing plan has already sent us their claim forms and as soon as we receive all the bills, we will submit our needs to them.

Adventures Among the Uninsured Part 3

Teresa came home from the hospital today from her gallbladder surgery.

I took a pain prescription to the local Rite Aid, which put me back $17.50, but they gave me a card for 10% off future orders, which is something Rite Aid does for customers who have no insurance. That’s a nice program!

Adventures Among the Uninsured Part 2

My wife is still in the hospital as a few complications still nag at her.

We were visited by two social workers, who gave us forms to fill out to apply for various grants that could lop off 25% or more from our final bill. It’s only a 2-page form, with the usual questions about income and dependents. They want 4 weeks of paycheck stubs, last year’s tax returns and a few other things I can’t remember right now. We’ll send that material off when Teresa gets out of the hospital, hopefully tomorrow.

Adventures Among the Uninsured

Okay, this isn’t theological but political. With all the health care reform hot gas out there, the Lord has put my family in a unique position to “test the system”.

I have good health insurance from my secular employment but my wife has none. I simply cannot afford the $400 a month it would cost to add her to my policy. We have her enrolled in the Good Samaritan medical sharing program. For all intents, she is uninsured.

Last week, my wife’s gall bladder practically “died”. It was removed on October 19 and her surgeon said it was the nastiest gallbladder she ever saw- infected, full of stones, three times normal size. All of this included two trips to the emergency room, surgery and so far, 3 days in the hospital. The bill will be substantial.

So how does an uninsured person deal with this? Besides our medical sharing program, which should cover a good chunk of it, we have been told that there are grants and other state programs to help uninsured patients. The surgeon told my wife not to worry that much about her bill.

Over the next several weeks, we will no doubt see our health care system in action, up close and personal. Watch this space to see not only how the Lord will meet our financial need, but how He does and and by what agencies. This all will go to answer the question “Is our health care system really so broken that we need Obama and the Socialists in Congress to ‘fix’ it for us?” Personally, I can think of a ton of improvements to improve our health care system that would require little or no new legislation (medical saving plans, like IRAs, allowing insurance companies to compete across state lines, removal of government mandated coverages, etc). But the days ahead should be “interesting” to say the least.