this post was submitted on 07 Jul 2023
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Doctor doesn't tell people what they owe, it's usually the billing department or their office manager who does (at least in the US)
Source: This was my job after college. I worked for a mental hospital, and it was my job to tell people how much their hospital stay was going to cost. A lot of the time, these patients were hospitalized because they've tried to commit suicide. So glad I don't work there anymore.
They did usually end up paying or not?
For some of them, I was able to sign them up for Medicaid, so their stay could be covered. Lots of people set up payment plans. For the people who didn't/couldn't pay, we would send them to collections. My hospital very, very rarely wrote anyone off. IIRC the cost for one night without insurance was around $4k.
I'm trying to imagine what it would be like for them to be that low in life, attempt suicide, end up hospitalized, then hit with a massive bill to crush them further. Some countries do a much better job at caring for their population than others, that's for sure.
For sure! It was definitely soul crushing, watching what very little hope people had being quashed by the ridiculousness that is US healthcare system. There were many times where we'd call to collect from patients and we'd speak with loved ones who told us that the patient ended up killing themselves shortly after discharge.
What's even more infuriating is that my coworkers and I made about $16/hr while our CEO raked in $150k+ a year.