Vote: Should the woman pay her ER bill?

She should pay.  This example only goes to show how uninformed most people are regarding the current health care system.  She saw only one nurse but do you know how many support people are behind that nurse?? - Check in desk, medical records, coders, billers, administrators, human resources,house keeping just to name a few - their salaries all need to be paid.  That waiting room didn't come cheap either.  As another commenter mentioned too many people go to emergency rooms for less than emergent reasons.  When you have a wave of people who all decide to show up in the ER at the same time more urgent patients (triage) must be treated 1st - child who gargled with bleach or lady with broken leg? - tough choice but you see the problem.  You can thank congress & CMS for the charge as they have stringent requirements of what each charge involves - Anyone hear of RVU's?? It's unfortunate she happened to break her leg when she did , but I know the nurse was just as exasperated with her having to wait as the patient was with waiting.

I did not vote because the choices were too narrow.

She went to the E.R. for treatment for a fracture. Her fracture was not assessed and she received no treatment for it despite a wait of 19 hours.

The source of the treatment (Physician or RN) would be irrelevant if the treatment were appropriate. Since she received no treatment appropriate or otherwise, she should owe nothing for the visit to the E.R.

An inappropriate assessment is worthless to the ER and to the patient. Why should the E.R. charge for a worthless assessment and why should the lady pay for a worthless assessment?

I do wonder why the lady spent so much time in the E.R. but then decided to treat the injury herself. If she did not feel the need for medical care, why go to the E.R.?

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Now, if there is more to the story, I would change my opinion. It is possible that assessment revealed that she needed no treatment, in which case she should pay for the assessment.

I have a very general question...

Why is it when you make an appointment with a doctor it almost feels like you are waiting on stand by for a flight?

I am getting sick of making an apponitment and waiting in the waiting room for 2 hours and then another hour in the examination room.

If you show up on time or even before your appointment why does the doctor over book and make you wait? This is just insane, I vote that we start charging doctors for making us wait. My time is just as expensive and precious as his/her time.

What the young lady should do is bill the ER for the 19 hours of her time wasted in an ER!

I was in a similar situation when I was made to wait because a guy came in with a shrept throat he had for over a week. I was 2 weeks post-op from a broken knee and I fell, I was made to wait for 8 hours and a MRI before they realize that I was in so much pain I kept passing out. They finally realized that something was wrong and boy they did a hop skip and jump to pump me full of drugs and sent me out the back door to boot!

Picture this, neck brace, leg brace and crutches..leaving out of the back door after eight hours...why, the guy with the strep throat had the room with monitors so they just left me to keep passing out from the pain. Is it me or does anyone else see something wrong with this?

I have health insurance and I am still made to wait...what gives? So it doesn't matter if you have insurance or not. Unless there was a ten car accident they have no excuse.

BTW, if she left and they did not discharge her, she does not need to pay. Know your rights.

WRONG!!  The salaries of hospital workers are built into the system.  I know people don't understand how this works, but it is how money is generated for paying these people.   Also, a broken leg is not considered "life threatening"; however, 19 hours is a bit much.  If a nurse checked her vital signs, she must have been admitted and therefore it was the nurse's responsibility to monitor her. She chose to leave.  Medical care isn't free. SOMEONE pays for every uninsured that uses an E.R. Maybe this isn't right, but it is how it is.  IF INSURANCE WERE MORE AFFORDALBE, MORE PEOPLE WOULD HAVE IT--ARE YOU LISTENING  DEAD-BEATS--I MEAN CONGRESS!!!!

I think she should pay the bill to establish a 'treatment/financial relationship' with the hospital then sue them for malpractice.

If she should pay the bill, then anyone who asks a question from a sales person should be paid accordingly.  Want advice for nothing??    I totally agree that she should not have to pay a dime.  Here is why I really say it is the difference:

     You are considered a non-profit organization to be tax emempt.  How can this be true if you receiving tax money from a state, county or city?   The hospital is in the

business for making a profit.  Are any of the other business supported by taxes or are

they PAYING TAXES.

i agree she should not have to pay the bill. what she should do is sue the hospital for it's negligence. i don't care how micromanaged the health care system is as far as how many people are under that nurse. the truth is the hospitals and doctors over charge your insurance and you personally all the time. and last time i checked a broken leg is very serious. there is no such thing as not sick enough or not hurt enough. that's just plain malpractice and negligence on the hospitals part as well as the dumbass nurse who continued to keep going over there for 19 hours and done nothing to get her into the emergency department for treatment. i guess it's a good thing the broken bone didn't puncture her artery and she could have waited to die. however even that wouldn't have taken 19 hours!

I agree, she went to the hospital to have her leg fixed.  It did not happen.  Were they waiting for her to starve, so they did not have to do anything useful.

Paying for the non treatment would be like paying Walmart for being greeted at the door.  That is not why you go to Walmart.

The real problem is that ERs are being clogged by people who should go to doctors fro non emergency treatment.  Socialized medicine is not the n\answer to that problem. 

I can check vitals!!!  Anyone want to pay me $162  for it?????

she needs to pay the bill...she was seen by a nurse in the er.....if she had seen a doctor she would get a separate bill from him....sad but true

I'm a nurse and i agree.... I would feel totally humiliated if I worked that ER and any patient was waiting 19 Hrs....  helloooo its liek the market...  if the lines to long with customers you call in back up. And the fact her vitals were took.  well that takes approx. 3 minutes max to do. This SHOWS how inflatedd the healthcare system is. The problem lies withen their over charging and over spending. DO NOT PAY THEM and make sure you dispute it on your credit.  Id also report them to the BBB for the long wait  report to the ethics.

Her waiting 19 hours is in my oppinion the secondary issue. Why should she pay her bill while thousands upon thousands of illegal immigrants are allowed FREE medical.

Am I the only one who believes that $164 for checking vitals is a bit out of line?  I am sick and tired of the medical community whining that they need to charge excessive prices for a service that cannot be controlled by market forces.  If the ultimate cost is that high because they have to pay the thousands in support staff, the hospitals need to assess: (1) whether certain professions are overcompensated  for the product they are providing (e.g., doctors); and (2) ways to make the process work more efficiently so there are not casts of thousands in the wings.  Health care costs are out of control.  Blaming the uninsured and the insurance companies is too easy.  The medical profession needs to take a good hard look at itself and start making the changes that American businesses are forced to make. 

As a volunteer EMT in Prince Georges County Maryland (county surrounding half of washington dc) I treat approximately 35 patients a week in my 12 hr night shifts. There are several points to be made here. First of all, 19 hours is unacceptable unless this hospital was truly a busy one. There are alerting systems in place almost in every medical care region that allow the general public, or at least EMS professionals to monitor hospital status. 19 hours however is unacceptable. As an EMT I will inform all of you that vital signs in most cases at hospitals are done by one machine, a small portable cart with pulse oximeter, Blood pressure cuff and thermometer. Not counting the one or two times that we (uncompensated) volunteer EMS crews take vital signs on the way to the hospital, this vital sign taking at the hospital is almost always usually done by ambulance crews when they bring their patient in the door.

We roll someone in, we hook a clip to their finger, cuff on their arm, thermometer in their mouth and press a grand total of one button that automatically gives us the vital signs. When the hospital staff says the nurse took "vital signs" they are talking about the charge nurse or triage nurse pressing that button and copying what it on the machine. Considering this person didnt reportedly come in by ambulance, I dont see how that should cost 162 dollars.

Hospitals are overworked, and I do admire the staff working therin, but I also believe that the crews in the hospitals could work to make things go a little smoother. I have had many occasions of bringing in what we in Maryland call a priority two patient (someone who is breathing and has no immediate threat to life, but needs serious and prompt medical attention), and standing there, having already taken vital signs, waiting for the charge nurse to even acknowledge our presence. In the meantime the patient (who in the last situation was having a heart attack, and the situation before that was having an allergic reaction closing his airway) is looking around wondering why theyre not getting treated.

Hospitals work nothing like the movies. Emergency departments are not laughing fun places with smiling people in labcoats. And every ambulance call is not like ER with the whole emergency team running through the front door into a room yelling "cc" and "stat" like the only staples of their vocabulary. It is a slow and eye opening process to anyone who has ever been ON the stretcher themselves. Even with advance notification, I spend an average time of 30-45 minutes at a hospital waiting for a nurse to triage my patient; and that is for ME the emergency crew coming through the emergency entrance and bypassing the waiting room.

And I will say a few things about the root causes for that. We live in a "sue me" society where we would rather spend money avoiding a lawsuit than risk liability for something truly stupid. I recieve emergency calls every day for things that ARE NOT emergencies and could easily be treated by calling a personal physician or going to a small clinic, or using your best judgement. The public is generally not educated in EMS, like our fire counterparts are. People know two routes out of the house and how to stop drop and roll, but they dont know when something is a 911 call and when it is a private ambulance call, or when it is a "get in the car and drive yourself" call. BUT living in the society we live in, when someone calls 911, even when it is for shoulder pain or oww my knee hurts (yes it happens), we go sirens screaming to the patient and take them to the hospital because we dont want to get caught in case this person hurts themselves worse because we didnt do everything as fast as possible.

I dont believe healthcare is a right, it is a responsibility. It is something that needs to be desirable from both ends. if you make it a right it becomes cheap or free; the people will love it but the doctors will disappear. If you make it a privilege, doctors will sign up for the gold rush but people will be left in the gutter. There needs to be responsibility taken to make it a viable market. Competition breeds excellence. Why would ford or toyota make a better car if there wasnt money to compete for. Why would toshiba and sony make a better tv if they were only going to have to give it away for free to the needy people of america.

In the same sense, why would hospitals and doctors improve care and make vaccines and go to school for 14 years past high school only to be a civil servant with a paygrade and government vouchers, treating every stubbed toe that came through the door for pennies on the dollar. As such I find it to be a responsibility.

As for my vote, I say pay a little! You did take up space in that hospital whether you knew it was busy or not, but 162 dollars for a machine to spit out 4 numbers, and no true care, no way. I say the hospital is at major fault in this case, but should not have to retract 100% of its money for a long wait time. This isnt a restaurant, the lifeblood of your business isnt customer service.

And thats everything I could possibly say about that.

As a volunteer EMT in Prince Georges County Maryland (county surrounding half of washington dc) I treat approximately 35 patients a week in my 12 hr night shifts. There are several points to be made here. First of all, 19 hours is unacceptable unless this hospital was truly a busy one. There are alerting systems in place almost in every medical care region that allow the general public, or at least EMS professionals to monitor hospital status. 19 hours however is unacceptable. As an EMT I will inform all of you that vital signs in most cases at hospitals are done by one machine, a small portable cart with pulse oximeter, Blood pressure cuff and thermometer. Not counting the one or two times that we (uncompensated) volunteer EMS crews take vital signs on the way to the hospital, this vital sign taking at the hospital is almost always usually done by ambulance crews when they bring their patient in the door.

We roll someone in, we hook a clip to their finger, cuff on their arm, thermometer in their mouth and press a grand total of one button that automatically gives us the vital signs. When the hospital staff says the nurse took "vital signs" they are talking about the charge nurse or triage nurse pressing that button and copying what it on the machine. Considering this person didnt reportedly come in by ambulance, I dont see how that should cost 164 dollars.

Hospitals are overworked, and I do admire the staff working therin, but I also believe that the crews in the hospitals could work to make things go a little smoother. I have had many occasions of bringing in what we in Maryland call a priority two patient (someone who is breathing and has no immediate threat to life, but needs serious and prompt medical attention), and standing there, having already taken vital signs, waiting for the charge nurse to even acknowledge our presence. In the meantime the patient (who in the last situation was having a heart attack, and the situation before that was having an allergic reaction closing his airway) is looking around wondering why theyre not getting treated.

Hospitals work nothing like the movies. Emergency departments are not laughing fun places with smiling people in labcoats. And every ambulance call is not like ER with the whole emergency team running through the front door into a room yelling "cc" and "stat" like the only staples of their vocabulary. It is a slow and eye opening process to anyone who has ever been ON the stretcher themselves. Even with advance notification, I spend an average time of 30-45 minutes at a hospital waiting for a nurse to triage my patient; and that is for ME the emergency crew coming through the emergency entrance and bypassing the waiting room.

And I will say a few things about the root causes for that. We live in a "sue me" society where we would rather spend money avoiding a lawsuit than risk liability for something truly stupid. I recieve emergency calls every day for things that ARE NOT emergencies and could easily be treated by calling a personal physician or going to a small clinic, or using your best judgement. The public is generally not educated in EMS, like our fire counterparts are. People know two routes out of the house and how to stop drop and roll, but they dont know when something is a 911 call and when it is a private ambulance call, or when it is a "get in the car and drive yourself" call. BUT living in the society we live in, when someone calls 911, even when it is for shoulder pain or oww my knee hurts (yes it happens), we go sirens screaming to the patient and take them to the hospital because we dont want to get caught in case this person hurts themselves worse because we didnt do everything as fast as possible.

I dont believe healthcare is a right, it is a responsibility. It is something that needs to be desirable from both ends. if you make it a right it becomes cheap or free; the people will love it but the doctors will disappear. If you make it a privilege, doctors will sign up for the gold rush but people will be left in the gutter. There needs to be responsibility taken to make it a viable market. Competition breeds excellence. Why would ford or toyota make a better car if there wasnt money to compete for. Why would toshiba and sony make a better tv if they were only going to have to give it away for free to the needy people of america.

In the same sense, why would hospitals and doctors improve care and make vaccines and go to school for 14 years past high school only to be a civil servant with a paygrade and government vouchers, treating every stubbed toe that came through the door for pennies on the dollar. As such I find it to be a responsibility.

As for my vote, I say pay a little! You did take up space in that hospital whether you knew it was busy or not, but 164 dollars for a machine to spit out 4 numbers, and no true care, no way. I say the hospital is at major fault in this case, but should not have to retract 100% of its money for a long wait time. This isnt a restaurant, the lifeblood of your business isnt customer service.

And thats everything I could possibly say about that.