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Not too long ago, I tripped trying to avoid stepping on our cat. The gash in my shin required six stitches, three tetanus shots, and four follow up visits to clean the wound. (Not a clean slice) Total was 2,500 baht or about 80 dollars.
NYTimes...With blood oozing from deep lacerations, the two patients arrived at California Pacific Medical Center’s tidy emergency room. Deepika Singh, 26, had gashed her knee at a backyard barbecue. Orla Roche, a rambunctious toddler on vacation with her family, had tumbled from a couch, splitting open her forehead on a table.
On a quiet Saturday in May, nurses in blue scrubs quickly ushered the two patients into treatment rooms. The wounds were cleaned, numbed and mended in under an hour. “It was great — they had good DVDs, the staff couldn’t have been nicer,” said Emer Duffy, Orla’s mother.
(Interesting inside note....I invite you to share your experiences by responding to the questions that will appear as you read this article. Your comments will inspire and inform follow-up articles on the cost of hospital care, to be published later this week.)
— Elisabeth Rosenthal, Reporter
Then the bills arrived. Ms. Singh’s three stitches cost $2,229.11. Orla’s forehead was sealed with a dab of skin glue for $1,696. “When I first saw the charge, I said, ‘What could possibly have cost that much?’ ” recalled Ms. Singh. “They billed for everything, every pill.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/03/he...0.html?hp&_r=0
NYTimes...With blood oozing from deep lacerations, the two patients arrived at California Pacific Medical Center’s tidy emergency room. Deepika Singh, 26, had gashed her knee at a backyard barbecue. Orla Roche, a rambunctious toddler on vacation with her family, had tumbled from a couch, splitting open her forehead on a table.
On a quiet Saturday in May, nurses in blue scrubs quickly ushered the two patients into treatment rooms. The wounds were cleaned, numbed and mended in under an hour. “It was great — they had good DVDs, the staff couldn’t have been nicer,” said Emer Duffy, Orla’s mother.
(Interesting inside note....I invite you to share your experiences by responding to the questions that will appear as you read this article. Your comments will inspire and inform follow-up articles on the cost of hospital care, to be published later this week.)
— Elisabeth Rosenthal, Reporter
Then the bills arrived. Ms. Singh’s three stitches cost $2,229.11. Orla’s forehead was sealed with a dab of skin glue for $1,696. “When I first saw the charge, I said, ‘What could possibly have cost that much?’ ” recalled Ms. Singh. “They billed for everything, every pill.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/03/he...0.html?hp&_r=0
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