I'm curious.

SwedishChick2011 · September 2009

My copay is $25 for doctor visits, including specialists. It would probably be a couple hundred dollars without insurance (if there's labwork involved anyway).

crfische · September 2009

And don't even THINK about an ambulance ride. Just the cost to get you from one place to another is so freaking expensive, it's unreal.

punkyb2b · September 2009

Ever ask what the cost of that med you were given for the abscess was? Pharmaceutical companies dont mess around when it comes to making money.A drug I give will soon be taken off the market even though its the only med that has helped a large number of my patients. and there is no generic option. Wanna know why? cause not enough people use it to make it worth the company's time to make it. Awesome.

shellydiane820 · September 2009

My parents help me pay.Its weird, for the past few years (until recently) I have lived at home and am pretty much a dependent, however according to the government, I'm not a dependent.If I have the extra money, I pay for it, or my parents will and I pay them back.

J&K10910 · September 2009

Without my insurance, the cost for a 30 minute office visit with no procedures is about $200-300 depending on the type of doctor. Procedures are a lot more. I had a biopsy that cost $800. Then you have to pay for it to be looked at, which is an addition several hundred.

shannonalise · September 2009

Night, it was actually quite an ordeal - I was broke and in college and in my ignorant thinking, figured, "$13,000! HAHA! That's just funny. Maybe it will go away if I ignore it." A few years later, I found out that it was on my credit report. OUCH! I still had very good credit, but wanted it off. The collectors told me that the hospital was willing to cut 90% of the cost if I would pay 10%. It took me a long time to pay it off, but I did. I thought it would have been removed from my credit (I was naive) when I paid it off, but it's still there. It shows up as being "paid" but it will be there for another year or so I think.

sucrets4 · September 2009

I used to have much better insurance in NY. It's so sad that it's expensive down here PLUS the cost for insurance through my school is ridiculous. Well, for me it's okay...about $150 a month, but if I added DH it would be about $750 A MONTH!!!! That's a good chunk of my paycheck. We are now insured under DH's plan for the same amount that I was paying just for me.No wonder so many people down here are sick and in poor health. It's ridiculous.Oh, and I had a colposcopy (biopsy of the cervix) - for a 2 min in office procedure it cost me $300 out of pocket. My jaw dropped when I got the bill.I had a cyst removed from my knee in NY, went into the hospital and had general anesthesia with an anesthesiologist and lots of other people - whole thing cost me $250 out of pocket. Unbelievable that the biopsy cost more than SURGERY.

vicmo5 · September 2009

Things like babies or getting a cold shouldn't be free.You are joking about babies right? Do you know how much that costs?!

punkyb2b · September 2009

Its totally legal to not accept a patient if they dont have insurance. You cant ask a doctor with their own private practice to work for free. Its illegal if they walk into an ER to not treat them. hence the problem with ER's being clogged up with ear infections, coughs, etc.

temerityjane · September 2009

I have no insurance at the moment and I don't even know what going to the doctor would cost. I'm just planning to... you know... just not get sick for another year.My sister has no insurance and just from I think two ER visits, she's tens of thousands in medical debt.

crfische · September 2009

Also, we went tubing down the Ottertail one summer, and my friend got sliced on a rock. We had to go to an out of network hospital. She needed 5 stitches. We were there for a half hour. Her bill? 900 bucks.

dapo2004 · September 2009

Mom's friend's 12-year-old daughter had to have 2 surgeries on her arm after a bicycling accident. Didn't have insurance. Long story short... her mother is now making payments on a $50,000 medical bill.

lpstl · September 2009

Shannon, for an office visit to get a script for migraines the visit should not be more than $100 at the absolute most. My dr would charge $50. Just call and make an appointment, when they ask for an insurance tell them you're self pay. Most clinics who market that they accept uninsured patients charge the most. A regular family practice dr isn't going to turn away a patient he's had for 20 years because they lost their job.

J&K10910 · September 2009

My FI had an ambulance ride, Xrays, an MRI, and a 3 day ICU stay. The bill (covered almost completely by his dad's insurance, which he was still on at the time) ended up being somewhere in the ballpark of $35,000. When you factor that stuff in, it gets ridiculous.

SwedishChick2011 · September 2009

Oh lord... ER visits are THOUSANDS. It's completely ridiculous. One time (my first year without insurance) I came down with a HORRIBLY nasty flu and became severely dehydrated from vomiting - my neighbor drove me to the ER and I got a bill for $13,500 for having a doctor see me and give me two bags of fluids through an IV. I was there for about 2 hours. Whoa. Did you actually have to pay that?

vicmo5 · September 2009

Ever ask what the cost of that med you were given for the abscess was?If this was about the abcess on my tonsills-I didn't get any meds. The doctor drained it with an enormous needle and gave me iv because I was severely dehyrated. The really funny thing was that they wanted me to come back the next day after I refused to be admitted to the hospital and I said no way. Can you imagine how much that bill would have been?

Nebb · September 2009

I cant even imagine paying for things like that, or that amount of money. Im so used to the free ohip ride. 500$ just to go to the gyn?! good lord.

Bobbysprncss · September 2009

I have a student health plan through my college (not very good insurance, but better than nothing) and to visit my Dr. it costs 30% of the cost of the visit normally around $30. The insurance doesn't cover preventative care so my annual exam at my OB/GYN cost me almost $200

tengma07 · September 2009

my copay is $15 for a scheduled visit, $25 for urgent care, $100 for emergencies, and it goes up for special stuff. Monthly it costs about $100-150 (coming out of my pay check before taxes)

shannonalise · September 2009

Yeah, I have a lot of Canadian friends that express how much they were floored when they moved to the U.S. and discovered our healthcare system. It's completely ridiculous.

lpstl · September 2009

punky, I'm not suggesting drs do services free of charge. I've just never worked with an office that doesn't have a fee schedule for selfpay patients. I've never met a dr who wouldn't accept payments directly from the patient.

vicmo5 · September 2009

lpstl-around here there aren't a lot of small practices left. All the big clinics like Allina and Health Partners have taken over and they can refuse people without insurance.

Leah&Christian09 · September 2009

If you truly can't afford $40-$100 and you're sick you should be on medicaid. That's what it's for. Medicaid isn't just available for anyone that decides the want it. The income eligibility for a single person is less than $9K annually. Plenty of people make more than $10K a year, don't have company sponsored health insurance, and have a hard time finding an extra $100. When I was in undergrad, I made about $20-25K waiting tables. Between rent and tuition, I sure didn't have an extra $100 to go to the doc.

SwedishChick2011 · September 2009

Just call and make an appointment, when they ask for an insurance tell them you're self pay. Yeah, if you say you're uninsured, that might scare them off because they're worried they won't get paid (understandably). But if you can afford the $150 or whatever out of pocket, it doesn't matter to them whether or not you have insurance.

shellydiane820 · September 2009

I applied for that pink card or whatever its called...I was denied.

shannonalise · September 2009

When I was in high school, my dad had a massive heart attack and died almost instantly on the floor of his bathroom. My mom, not knowing what else to do, called 911. The cost to carry my DEAD father's body to the hospital? About $3,000.

ricksang · September 2009

We don't have insurance and I pay about 150-200 for my yearly gyn. AND 80.00 for my 6 month dental cleaning. It is 70 for a Dr.'s visit.

SnShne322 · September 2009

It costs me $20.00 in copays, but I have a $2000 deductible.I had a couple heart procedures done last year and without insurance it would have cost well over $100,000. The thought of not having insurance scares the crap out of me. In MA now though, it's required.

punkyb2b · September 2009

A couple things. Lots of would be family doctors are choosing other fields like dermatology or surgery because of a number of factors:-the crazy high mal practice insurance fees (sooo many people file claims that have no merit but it costs money to have a hospital lawyer invilved)-the not awesome pay that general medicine pays-the cost of medical school makes it hard for docs to pay back and live on a gen doc salary. I have many friends who have taken less prestigious positions and moved to places like Houson to be able to have some quality of life. - insurance companies and pharmaceutical companies are profiting,a lot of hospitals and physicians are eating a lot of costs themselves.

shannonalise · September 2009

insurance companies and pharmaceutical companies are profiting,a lot of hospitals and physicians are eating a lot of costs themselves.Absolutely.

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