Sterilization Price Update
I got an "Explanation of Benefits" from my insurance company today. I was way off on what the sterilization really cost. Just the bill to the hospital was $16,458.63. I don't pay it; the insurance company does. I only had to pay the $100 co-pay. No wonder my premiums are so high. That price doesn't include what they paid my doctor or the anesthesiologist. I'm stunned and appalled.
In Australia where healthcare is "free," is there any way to find out what the free-market price would have been without national health care coverage?
4 Comments:
Wow. It always astounds me to hear about health costs. I don't remember how much my surgery was to get my gallbladder out, and I don't think I ever looked. Luckily I had health insurance. Hopefully nothing will happen to me before July, because I won't have health insurance until I marry JOn and get it through his work. My insurance dropped me for some unknown reason. I wish they couldn't do that, *sigh*.
I'm not sure how we would find out how much sterilisation would cost but I can tell you that my BIL's knee replacement was about $40,000AUD.(approx $33,000US) Of that he paid $4,000. He has insurance but our insurance doesn't cover the whole bill, we have to pay the gap between what the Govt thinks the operation is worth and what the surgeon actually charges.
My SIL had to pay for her hospital stay when her daughter was born (she wasn't an Australian citizen at the time)and the bill came to over $5,000. That was for a straight forward natural birth and 4 days in hospital, 12 years ago. I'd hate to think what my two c-sections cost!
We can have private health insurance but that means that the hospital and surgeon can set their own price which is usually way higher than the Govt recommended price. My BIL could have had his knee done through the Govt but he would have had to wait. Going private meant that he got to choose when he had the op
Andrea, I sure hope your health remains good until your wedding. I'd probably have married the moment my insurance dropped me. At least you're young enough you shouldn't start falling apart for at least another decade.
Brilly, I wonder if my price isn't so high because I have insurance. Around here, that price could buy a modest new car. I was only at the hospital for about five hours. I used a pre-surgery room that was really a stall with a curtain, the operating room, the first recovery room, and the second recovery room. I can't think of why it should have been so expensive. They fed me ice chips afterwards (I barfed them up), but no meal. I don't think someone without insurance could afford the sterilization, and certainly not the price of giving birth. If you could afford the surgery, you could afford insurance.
Sterilization is the sort of surgery that can wait until the government can fit you in. I assume they don't tell you "wait" when you are sterilized upon giving birth since you don't usually control that date by very much.
I didn't realized that you could even have private health insurance with socialized medicine.
Private health insurance has always been available and it used to be popular. G and I both had it until they changed the way that they run it. It used to be that if you had insurance you got 100% of medical costs reimbursed. Now you have to pay the difference between what the Govt says the procedure is worth and what the doctor actually charges.
If you have insurance and you are in an accident then you are taken to hospital and treated the same way that a public patient is.
If you have elective surgery (like sterilization) then you get to choose the doctor, hospital and timing of the op. If you want to be sterilized through the public system then you go on a waiting list and have whatever doctor is rostered on that day.
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