Society

A Heart Attack And The Numbers

Submitted by Darren Smith, Weekend Contributor

Heart showing MIPresenting a succinct short story of a heart attack and the billing as experienced by a patient

One afternoon a man sitting at home and reading a news article, stood up to walk to the kitchen. He felt a sudden pain in his chest along with shortness of breath. About an hour later the pain returned and this time began spreading over the top of his chest and into his neck. Concerned, he drove to the emergency department of a local hospital.

The hospital admitted this patient and did not initially find any signs of heart issues from blood labs and ECG tests but the Hospitalist ordered an overnight stay for observation.

Around 1:30 AM a blood test revealed elevated cardiac enzymes, and again at 6:00 AM. A cardiologist ordered the patient into a cath-lab at 8:00 for an angiogram, concerned of a heart attack.

What follows is one of many true testaments to some health care issues in America.

In the Cath-Lab, the cardiologist found the Right Coronary Artery was 90% blocked and other areas will require further treatment at a later date to allow the heart to recover from the procedure. He placed a stent and the procedure was wrapped up in a little over an hour. The patient stayed overnight and was discharged the next day.

Two days after discharge, the patient felt very weak, short of breath, and angina pains. The on-call cardiologist ordered him to the emergency room. After an overnight stay, the cause was determined to be a drug interaction that lowered his blood pressure to a worryingly low level. The physician changed the drug regime.

In a follow up with the cardiologist, a week later, he recommended based on the continuance of the patient’s angina and general lack of energy that the patient should have the second phase of the stenting move to the soonest date available. On that day the patient went to hospital and another angioplasty was performed. Three medicated stents were placed and another coronary artery was ballooned. The hospital discharged the patient the next day.

The quality of care the patient received was excellent and the staff and physicians performed their duties to the highest standard. The patient is making a strong recovery and is feeling much healthier and better. There was no damage detected to the heart. The intervention certainly prevented a catastrophic heart attack from occurring in the future.

Now for the other aspect of this story: The cost

06/19/2014 to 06/21/2014
Inpatient HOSPITAL
   
INITIAL OBSERVATION 231.00
SBSQ HOSPITAL CARE/DAY 168.00
HOSPITAL DISCHARGE DAY 169.00
   
Sub-Total 568.00
   
06/19/2014 to 06/21/2014
Inpatient Hospital
   
Cardiology 45,716.53
EKG/ECG 640.29
Emergency Room 2,760.48
Laboratory 2,367.48
Supplies and Devices 11,247.60
Pharmacy 6,304.32
Radiology 412.26
Room and Board 3,461.09
Observation Room 1,053.20
   
Sub-Total 73,963.25
   
06/22/2014 to 06/23/2014
Outpatient HOSPITAL
   
EKG/ECG 213.43
Emergency Room 2,760.48
Laboratory 1,747.63
Pharmacy 458.67
Radiology 412.26
Observation Room 1,579.80
   
Sub-Total 7,172.27
   
07/14/2014 to 07/15/2014
Inpatient HOSPITAL
   
Cardiology 86,472.79
EKG/ECG 426.86
Laboratory 813.78
Supplies and Devices 56,943.56
Other Imaging Services 1,019.02
Pharmacy 9,827.02
Room and Board 2,633.68
   
Sub-Total 158,136.71
   
Grand Total $239,840.23

The patient spent, in total, seven days in hospital, the cost of which was nearly two hundred and forty thousand dollars. This amount represents 94% of what the patient paid for his house years ago.

When a person wakes up in the morning, they certainly don’t expect to have a mild heart attack or that a month later they will get a bill equal to four and a half years’ income for the median American Household. Yet, it happens quite often in the United States, probably every hour at least.

Fortunately he had health insurance. Of the $239K the hospital, cardiologist, and others billed, the patient was only responsible for $1,824.86. He paid the bill, thankful for this new gift of health and that his insurance indemnified him from the tremendous cost of the procedures.

One certainly cannot stress enough the importance of health insurance, for a healthy life and financial stability. Without insurance or government program most Americans would be bankrupted in receiving treatment as our patient has.

Also, though the treatment was certainly first rate, one has to wonder how seven days of hospitalization and a procedure lasting a little over an hour and the second part three, generated an expense of nearly $240,000.00.

Surely the cost is worthwhile to save a patient’s life. But, what is the cost to society in having a system such as we do presently?

By Darren Smith

Source: Confidential
Photo Credit: J Heuser

The views expressed in this posting are the author’s alone and not those of the blog, the host, or other weekend bloggers. As an open forum, weekend bloggers post independently without pre-approval or review. Content and any displays or art are solely their decision and responsibility.

172 thoughts on “A Heart Attack And The Numbers”

  1. Doglover,

    There’s a town I live near. Celebrities live there. Rock stars, baseball, basketball, football, news anchors, hip hop musicians. They all have big mansions.
    The bigger mansions in this area belong to the hospital and pharmaceutical CEO’s.

    One CEO’s mansion, has a helicopter landing pad that accommodated the US President’s Marine 1 chopper for a fund raiser event. I’m not making this stuff up.

  2. isn’t health insurance a great thing to have be it through your employer, union, medicare , well that’s all going to change with the A.C.A. and the panel of non doctors deciding weather you warrant the operation

  3. Heart disease is caused by inflammation. Inflammation is caused by Western diet. Western diet is caused by a nation with people who can put a man on the moon, but not decent food on the table. How ironic is it that Neil Armstrong, an iconic symbol of technology, ended up on the bypass table after a lifetime of worshipping processed and frankenfood technology at the dinner table, then died at the hands of medical technology that failed him?

    The US healthcare system is destined to gobble up 25 to 30 percent of the GDP within only a few short years. If Americans would only clean up their reckless diet, the money they piss away on healthcare would go a long way to solve so many other issues that cause human suffering in the world.

    Not only that, but addiction, such as with alcohol, is a variation of malnourishment. People who are well nourished, that is, consuming a balanced diet that does not cause inflammation, are at virtually zero risk of addiction to any substance. The very definition of Western diet is malnutrition. Thus, the greatest social evil is not addiction to substance but addiction to the Western diet, itself.

    Deep-six the Western diet, and you-deep six the greed in the healthcare system.

    1. samantha – Asians and African have heart-disease as well. New work on Egyptian mummies show heart disease in them.
      FYI, for alcoholics who drink beer they’re getting their food through beer which is a food source. Addiction is not caused by Western diets. Your information on addiction is ill-informed.

  4. Sometimes I have to go to my eye doc to get a lash pulled. I usually can pull them myself but sometimes the lash won’t let me grab hold. Takes the fellow, not the attending, not even a minute to get me in front of the slitlamp for the bright light and pull the lash. Forthis I am charged $125.00 as a surgical procedure.
    Has nothing to do with illegal aliens Paul. Look at the charges for Tylenol, Barking’s story etc. It is pure and utter greed.
    (And since more insured under the ACA. insurance will pick up what has been added to all of our bills to pay for the uninsured.

    1. leejcaroll – thought Obamacare was taking care of all your problems.

  5. The 800 pound gorilla in the room is you benefited from insurance mostly by the negotiated rates the INS has with the providers. Those rates could be offered to anyone but are not to make you buy insurance. The Ins company did not pay $240,000 minus your deductible.

  7. Contributing to the high expense is hospital boards being made up of CEOs of companies with reciprocal board members. The boards vote for very large salaries for each other i.e. CEOs sitting on each other’s boards. Hospital CEOs are among the highest paid CEOs.

    Considering that preventable medical errors are the third most common cause of death – in the hundreds of thousands each year, CEO and cardiologist salaries don’t seem justified. They make many deadly errors.

    1. doglover – don’t forget that Michelle Obama was paid a very high salary by some hospital.

  8. Darren,

    Great post. Let’s drill into this.

    How Much Does it Cost to Have a Baby in a Hospital? A UCSF study 2014

    The study found that California women giving birth were charged from $3,296 to $37,227 for an uncomplicated vaginal delivery, depending on which hospital they visited.

    For a C-section, women were billed between $8,312 and nearly $71,000. Few of the women in the study had serious health issues and most were discharged within six days of admission.

    “Unlike other industries, the way health care is priced and paid for is notoriously opaque, making it difficult for patients to act as educated, price-comparing consumers”.

    Reminds me of bringing my SUV in for an oil & filter change for $ 14.95. The mechanic does a 10 point inspection & the service advisor tries to write up work for $3500 that isn’t needed. A fake, fraud and phony.

  9. Barkindog, Great job and great story. It is a legit and common practice to charge regular customers/clients a preferred rate. I did, and you probably do as well? But hospitals GOUGE non insured patients.

  10. Regarding the charges for “supplies”. I defended a civil suit against my client by a hospital. The person in charge of billing testified in deposition that each charge on the billing was absolutely accurate, fair and the cost to the hospital. So, I went down the list of billing. There was a charge on there for a knee pad. I went to Sears and bought a knee pad and it had the price tag on it. I took it to court. When the other side put the expert on I repeated the same line of questioning about the reasonableness of all the billing. They had charged a hundred dollars or so for their knee pad. My client still had it and was wearing it for a joke of sorts at this point of the trial. I had him remove it and showed it to the billing chief from the hospital. Yes, that is ours. Then I showed him the one with the price tag from Sears. “Yes, that is ours.” “Well”, I said. “Sears only wants two dollars and eighteen cents.” ” Well”, he replied. ” I cant make any sense out of that.”
    The jury was only out an hour. They awarded the hospital two dollars and eighteen cents. Total. The foreman later explained to me and the news reporter that this was the only amount of the billing which made any “cents”.
    True story.

  11. If this bill astounds you it would be over 300k if this person didn’t have insurance. The insurance companies receive preferred rates since they are big and regular clients. People w/o insurance pay much higher rates.

  12. I describe it as : Socialized Capitalism. There is no competition from whence to choose. Forget the supplies for a moment. Where did all the money go to the so called Cardiology? Is that the doctor?

    Randy Newman Song:

    Doctor, Doctor, what you say.
    How bout letting me out today.
    Ain’t no reason for me to stay.
    Cause everybody is far away.
    Let me back on my feet again!
    Back on my feet again!
    Open the door. Set me free.
    Let me back on my feet again..

    1. Have you ever looked at the difference between what your doctor bills and what the insurance company pays? And the government pays even less.

  13. buckaroo, You went to a superb hospital. I am glad to hear you’re doing well.

  14. Paul C. Schulte

    We could significantly drop the cost of medicine in this country by deporting the 11 million plus illegal aliens who are here.
    ====================
    Scapegoating (in medical terms “misdiagnosis”).

    It has been the top killer, maimer, and destroyer for a long time because people do not know, nor want to know, the real causes (US vs. World (Healthcare)).

    If you misdiagnose you will axiomatically mistreat.

    1. Dredd – are you denying that if we took 11 million illegals off the free health rolls it would cut the cost of health care?

  15. I am sure the submitted charges for American health care are beyond most citizens ability to pay. However, such charges are only Sticker prices paid by few, if any patients for care received . Lets us be fair here regarding amount actually paid for such services.

  16. We could significantly drop the cost of medicine in this country by deporting the 11 million plus illegal aliens who are here.

  17. One of the things I learned about hospitals is that they charge for everything. You can also challenge every charge. There are a lot of charges that they add hoping the insurance company will pay for them, but the patient never received. This is not to make more profit for the hospital, this is to pay for treating illegal aliens and other non-insured that they are required to by law. You, through your insurance company, pick up the tab for these people.

  18. “Surely the cost is worthwhile to save a patient’s life. But, what is the cost to society in having a system such as we do presently?” – Darren

    There is a proper and an improper way to do the common good that our government structure was designed to facilitate.

    The U.S. Health Cary System has been perverted by selfishness, robe worship, unkindness, and commercialism.

  19. I have just returned from the Cleveland Clinic where I had mitral valve repair. Wonder what my charges might be ? Was it worth such charges ? Yes, yes,yes …

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