[Video transcript start: “Alright, y’all like the desk shit, and I’ve got plenty of it. So here’s another scenario: you go to the emergency room, you get a bill for a thousand dollars. The very first thing you do, other than calling and asking for a ‘review of the level of care,’ that’s the first thing you do. While on the phone, while they’re doing that, you also say, ‘I want an itemized bill with every single charge.’

“Now what they’re going to do on the back end of that–because they don’t want you to know that they’ve charged you thirty-seven dollars for a fucking band-aid–they’re going to take that thirty-seven dollar charge right off of there. Before they send you the itemized statement, any of those stupid charges? They’re gonna take them right off. Generally, my bills go from a thousand dollars to seven-hundred and fifty, they take about two-hundred dollars off just for stupid shit. All you have to do is ask for an itemized bill with every charge, and they’re gonna take those charges off, ‘cause they don’t want you to know that they’re charging you thirty-seven dollars for a fucking band-aid, and guess what? That’s how much they charge for a fucking band-aid. So, when you actually can say, ‘You charged me thirty-seven dollars for a band-aid?’ They don’t like that. So they remove-” Audio cuts off mid-sentence and ends.]

Wish I would have known this when I had to go to the hospital a couple years ago. Over 500 dollar bill for a band aid & antibiotic cream that I put on myself 🙃

Dont let them screw you.

You can also write a Letter of Hardship if you’re in financial distress and they’ll reduce the bill drastically. I had a $2.5K ER bill, wrote to the billing department saying I’m unmarried, unemployed, and uninsured, and they knocked it down to $125.

That’s not a typo. $125.

Reblogging to save a llife.

Ok so I work in the billing cycle for a very large hospital system and I’m here to tell you to always ask for an itemized statement and ask if you can be billed later. I will say that the people who generate the itemized bills in our company do not have access to changing charges on your bill BUT it can give you a breakdown of what you were charged for and you can dispute the charges from there. It should also have a list of all the payments you/your insurance made so you’ll know if your insurance paid for what their supposed to. And you can use the itemized statement to appeal to your insurance company. Now if you don’t have insurance hopefully you can apply for some type of hardship. It will be harder if you went to a smaller healthcare system but many can help. Also you can ask about their self pay system because if you don’t have insurance pay they’ll knock around 40% off the charges (that’s an example not a rule).

Now I say all this in an attempt to help but if there’s been one thing I’ve learned — healthcare is a fucking racket and some of the biggest winners being insurance companies (hospitals also win big but the idealist in me also hopes some of that goes towards research and saving lives but we’re talking about capitalism so). Healthcare is right not a privilege and if I can help 1 person not pay a dime you best believe I’m gonna because capitalism shouldn’t be involved. We were told everyone has the rights of life and liberty and capitalism, especially in healthcare, is counterproductive to both.