• @tigeruppercut@lemmy.zip
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    1224 days ago

    I moved out of the US and when I had to pay to get a tooth filled my flabber was gasted when they charged me 17 bucks.

    I don’t think I can ever go home.

  • @SwingingTheLamp@midwest.social
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    1224 days ago

    I had major depression when I was younger. I couldn’t get individual insurance because it was a pre-existing condition. I couldn’t afford it, anyway, because getting and keeping a job was very difficult because, uh, depression? So, getting a job with a group plan was also out of reach. I had to research it and treat it myself, which, goddamn right I’m proud I managed.

    But now I’m middle-aged, single, and probably will never have the savings to retire. Eat a Grand Canyon full of Godzilla dicks, U.S. healthcrime system.

  • SanguinePar
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    925 days ago

    Once upon a time there was a man who was very, very, very, very, very glad he never had to deal with the American healthcare system. He lived happily ever after.

  • @AA5B@lemmy.world
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    24 days ago

    My wife had surgery. However they didn’t prescribe painkillers until after the surgery.

    I got her comfortable at home and ran down to pick them up … and was rejected as “drug seeker”. Wtf. It took a full day before I could convince them to fill it, and they kept wanting her to come in person when she just had surgery

  • @That_Devil_Girl@lemmy.ml
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    3125 days ago

    I’m intersex and have both male and female anatomy. US healthcare “insurance” isn’t coded for people like me. It assumes a sex binary when the facts of reality show otherwise.

    Back at my old job, I had full premium health insurance. However, they kept denying each and every claim, denying literally everything. They unofficially recognized my intersex condition and used it against me.

    Whenever I filed a claim as female, they’d deny it and claim I was male and thus the claim was incorrectly filled out. When I filed as male, they’d pull the exact same stunt now claiming I’m female and thus the claim was incorrectly filled out. Whatever the claim, large or small, it was always the wrong sex on the paperwork.

    It was a "heads I win, tails you lose" situation. I have a better job with the government and with a different insurance company, but they too are starting to pull the same stunt. I hate this country for allowing such corruption to thrive.

    • @papalonian@lemmy.world
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      122 days ago

      This is something I haven’t really thought about. I work in healthcare and I can genuinely tell you I’d have no idea how to handle this, if your meds got sent to my pharmacy there would likely be a huge delay and I guarantee you it would not be anything intentional on our side 😭 of course an insurance company will have dealt with this many more times than a chain pharmacy and should have practices in place for such situations, but I don’t think there’s anything in my system I could do to say someone is both male and female.

      • @That_Devil_Girl@lemmy.ml
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        120 days ago

        I can genuinely tell you I’d have no idea how to handle this

        Yeah that’s pretty much the story of my life. Everyone from insurance, to employers, to the military, to legal paperwork, to traveling, and everything else. I was even excommunicated from my church when I was 12 for the “crime” of being intersex.

        Not only do I have this issue, my little brother and my uncle on my mom’s side does too.

  • Chozo
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    2225 days ago

    I’ve got cluster headache. Only medication that had any noticeable effect was Prednisone. Not even that expensive of a drug, but more than I could afford out of pocket. Insurance wouldn’t cover it because they considered an oxygen mask to be a more appropriate treatment, even though I’d been using them for months with no improvement, and O2 only works for a small percent of people with cluster headache, anyway.

    Couldn’t afford to get the meds. Not legally, at least. A coworker was taking Prednisone for a different condition, and managed to convince his doctor to double his dosage, and I paid him for the difference, until he stopped taking it altogether. Ended up having attacks again, and missed enough work because of them to get fired. Between the pain and losing my job, that was easily one of the lowest points in my life.

    I wouldn’t wish our healthcare system on my worst enemies.

    • Transient Punk
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      1025 days ago

      If you have a pet, you may be able to convince the vet to prescribe them Prednisone

      • Chozo
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        725 days ago

        Hadn’t considered that! Sad that that’s probably the most viable option if I needed to get it again.

        • JackbyDev
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          324 days ago

          My dog has anxiety and is taking Xanax and Prozac (I forget which exactly, and they’re the generic of course) prescribed by a vet and filled at a human pharmacy.

    • @philpo@feddit.org
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      124 days ago

      The worst thing about that are the prices in the US. Not only that the insurance system is shit,you are also getting cheated there.

      I actually looked up Prednisone in Germany (third most expensive pharma market in the world): 5mg, 100x, 16 bucks. Basically around that price for all halfway normal doses.

      In other words, for 60 bucks you could easily cover a year.

  • @xmunk@sh.itjust.works
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    1325 days ago

    In three consecutive months, for the same amount of the same medication from the same pharmacy, I paid 270$, 30$, and 0$.

    Healthcare pricing is complete fucking bullshit.

  • Nomecks
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    2024 days ago

    Canadian here. Had an accident and took a ten minute ambulance ride in Minnesota. $1400.

    • @corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca
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      23 days ago

      Also Canadian.

      While in Seattle on an H1, needed to go to Northgate for a routine maintenance procedure. (I’m a twin. Guess which procedure)

      It’s a well-developed thing, and so i tell the doc, “look. This has been developed for 10 years, it responds well once the pressure’s off, don’t cut me just gimme a local and draw it out with a horse needle.” He agrees.

      Next thing I know, “And here we have Mr Guppy, presenting with…” and a dozen kids are looking at a nekkid part of me. And they shoot the local.

      And I feel the push of the scalpel cutting. Those motherfucking butchers. And butcher they did.

      Had to pay $500 on the way out, and apparently that’s a lucky thing even with my American insurance at the time.

      Ultimately I came back to canada because the risk of a car crash ruining me financially for life was too much to bear. Fuck that.

    • @BonesOfTheMoon@lemmy.world
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      624 days ago

      Also Canadian, would drag myself across the border on a broken leg and throw myself on the mercy of the Niagara Falls hospital before I ever got near an American hospital. I’d be bleeding from my head wound and assuring the border guard I had no alcohol or tobacco and did not spend over my dominus.

      • Nomecks
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        221 days ago

        No joke: My mom burned herself with coffee really bad and we high tailed it back across the border to Sarnia before getting treated.

  • LucasWaffyWaf
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    6325 days ago

    A friend of mine was feeling ill, but didn’t go to the hospital because he couldn’t afford it. Once the leukemia started advancing though he only lasted a week.

  • @ChaosCoati@midwest.social
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    1924 days ago

    My spouse had their lung collapse. Insurance denied it because we didn’t get advance approval for their lung to collapse.

    • @spirinolas@lemmy.world
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      924 days ago

      This is scary, as an European. I had my left lung collapse too. Two years later my right one. After that I had to have surgery on my right lung (Pleural Abrasion) and a few months of physiotherapy after that. I also had a yearly appointment with a Pneumology MD for 5 years to follow the development of the lung until it was all fine.

      How much did I pay? You guessed it…zero. Now I wonder how much would that set me back in the US with or without insurance.

      • @ChaosCoati@midwest.social
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        224 days ago

        I’m glad you’ve recovered! They did say it was more likely for my spouse to have a lung collapse again, which is scary.

        Luckily my spouse’s employer has someone whose whole job is to fight with insurance. She got insurance to admit that in an emergency we didn’t need pre-approval which brought our bill down some.

    • @acchariya@lemmy.world
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      24 days ago

      Had something similar, failed to get pre-approval for a CT scan to diagnose a pleural effusion. Yes, I was supposed to wait 24-36h for someone unfamiliar with my case and likely not even a doctor to determine if a diagnostic test was nessasary.

      Edit DDD

  • Rob
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    1324 days ago

    Blue Cross denied my claim for coverage of therapy ($125/week) because the address is clearly not a business address. Yes, that’s right, my therapist operates from her home, which is a horse farm. So does this mean BC doesn’t cover any home offices? Or is it just ones that have “ranch” in the address?

    We’ll see! I’ve filed a grievance challenging the denial. I’m looking at around $6000 for the year if they persist.

  • @TheAlbatross@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    25 days ago

    There are far worse out there, but about a year ago I injured my hand somehow. I couldn’t close my fist, which made it hard for me to work and support my partner as I do a majority of the cooking and chores. I couldn’t make a firm enough grip to use cast iron cookware. I was really concerned about this for a number of obvious reasons, so I went to the doctor.

    I looked up an in network doc, call them up, confirm they take my insurance, double check that the kind of care I was looking for was covered. At my appointment they ask to do a physical as well, since I was due for one. During that they asked all the normal questions, the poignant one here being “do you smoke?” I replied “I have one or two cigarettes socially when drinking with some friends, which happens maybe once every other month or less.” This changed the tone of the entire visit.

    My concern about my hand was largely disregarded and the doctor began talking to me about smoking cessation and the dangers of tobacco. Gave me pamphlets, tried to ask if I’d consider quitting, asked if I’ve tried alternatives. I tried to turn things back to my hand and she wasn’t interested. After I strongly insisted that was my sole medical interest, she gave me a referral.

    I pay my copay up front and leave. I go to the specialist a few days later. He looks at my hand for 45 seconds and gives me a wrist brace and tells me to sleep with it on. I pay my copay and leave. Wouldn’t ya know? That did it! My hand was working again.

    I call the specialist to follow up on his care and say it worked well. He told me I need to speak with billing to settle my bill. I’m confused. Wasn’t the copay for that? He says the insurance covered the visit but not the medical device (the wrist brace). So I check with billing and they want four hundred dollars. I’m flabbergasted. I check where they got the product, because surely it couldn’t cost that. I found the identical product, brand and all, on Amazon for $13. I’m livid. I argue with them, they say they can’t do anything.

    I call the insurance and they say my policy was clear about specialists and medical devices. Dejected and feeling stupid, I just pay.

    About a week later I get a call from the first doc saying I needed to settle up as well. I owe them five hundred dollars!!! How?? They say the bloodwork they did wasn’t covered. I plead saying that’s a normal part of a physical, no? They say yes, but I didn’t come in for a physical, according to the billing, I came in for a smoking cessation meeting!!

    I tried for weeks to get the doctor on the phone to rectify this but they wouldn’t speak to me. My insurance company said they didn’t cover bloodwork as part of that and the doctors office wouldn’t change the billing.

    I’m sick of doctors, I’m sick of insurance companies. If I get sick, I make chicken soup, drink tea, and scarf OTC drugs. I sprang my ankle fishing earlier this year. Did I go to a doctor? Absolutely not! I can’t afford a $900 bill every time something goes wrong.

    I pay $360 a month for this. Thankfully I make enough that this wasn’t so damaging on my life, but I stopped buying as much meat and ate mostly beans for a year and didn’t travel for my vacation. I had been hoping to visit my father across the country that year but we had to put it off. It changed my outlook on medical services drastically and I’ll never be so honest to doctors again.

    • @acchariya@lemmy.world
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      224 days ago

      If we all just stop paying the insurance, and instead just put $50/month towards the exorbitant medical bills, boom, universal healthcare

    • JackbyDev
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      724 days ago

      I think what annoys me so much about doctors is that they charge you afterwards. If you knew what you were doing was gonna cost $500 you wouldn’t have chosen to do it. They know what your insurance is. They know what they charge. But they don’t tell you until afterwards.

    • @vinnymac@lemmy.world
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      524 days ago

      I had a similar experience in the last year. They basically try to trick you into paying. They know exactly what they are doing too.

      This one time a few years ago I literally went in for a check up (first time all year) to find I had a completely new doctor assigned to me. And I couldn’t even make this shit up if I tried. The new doctor was not in my network, they did not inform me during my visit, and he tried to get me to do shit (upcharge) that fortunately I outright refused the entire time we spoke.

      When the bill came they tried to charge me out of network prices, and I basically fought them for six months saying that it was a surprise bill until they finally gave up. I don’t plan on ever going back to that office again in my life.

  • SharkEatingBreakfast
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    24 days ago

    I could not walk for more than 5 minutes without excruciating pain. I finally asked to be taken to the hospital after a back spasm that had me bash my face after a fall.

    Went to the hospital. Was diagnosed with “mild scoliosis” and “anxiety” and sent home with stronger than average Tylenol. Was bedridden for nearly 2 months. Lost my job. Got other appointments for GP. Looked and said I needed a specialist. I could not afford a specialist, as I was now out of money. They shrugged and wished me luck.

    I was forced to stay like this for nearly 2 full years.

    When I was on the verge of killing myself, someone offered to pay for a chiropractor. I didn’t care. I had nothing to lose.

    Anyhow, long story short, guy found that my spine had been forcefully lodged into my pelvis and stuck there. Dude had me healed in week.

    This is NOT an endorsement for chiropractors— this is a testament to the failure of the healthcare system. I could not see anyone, so my desperation led me there.

    I still have back issues. But I can walk again and be touched without pain.

    • granolabar
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      1425 days ago

      Careful, apparently a lady got charged for suggesting health insurance company might be next.

      National headline and all

        • granolabar
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          425 days ago

          Reddit is undergoing a serious scrab… There won’t be much evidence of the genuine sentiment.

          Shills are back doing politics shit.

          Although they are getting called out for it for now it seems.

          They will keep this up until Unity falls

      • ERROR: Earth.exe has crashed
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        625 days ago

        To be fair, she also added “you people are next” which probably sounded more threatening than just those 3 words alone. Not that I agree with it, but thats how the authorities see it.

        • granolabar
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          525 days ago

          State has the burden of proof.

          Would a reasonable person feel threatened here?

          Her capacity?

          We all can see what the government is doing… Do you think they treat every customer service abuse with this zeal?

          • ERROR: Earth.exe has crashed
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            425 days ago

            Arrests have lower threshold of proof than a conviction in court. Which is why the cops got away with doing this.

            The requirement of arrest is “probable cause” and her words probably meets that definition.

            In court, its “beyond a resonable doubt” which probably wouldn’t be met.

            She wont get convicted, they are just arresting her and charging her with crimes to scare her and make an example of her.