If your wife is pregnant, look for a diffrent hospital, avoid this. I have a terrible experience here, service was mediocre and they'll suck your bank account.
Here's one situation. Went there 6AM because my wife was bleeding then a nurse took some test if there was contraction. After an hour we were told negative then I waited until 10 in the morning. There was already a result why we had to wwait that long, found out that the nurse that was assigned to us was assiting a caesarian operation and had forgotten about us. That was just one of the many worse thing that happened. Let me add that I was so mad that I myself took all the wires around my wife and told her to get dressed and we walked to the counter. That was the time that rude and fat receptionist lady called the nurse out of the operating room. That's how I learned that she was doing something else cuz she was wearing mask and gloves, etc. The apologized hypocritically. I paid them extra hours while I came late to work.
i understand your mad, but its not like the nurse was out back having a smoke. Its a problem with most hospitals, not enough nurses.
Congratulations on the (impending?) baby, btw. I think you should chalk it up to the economics that incentivize all hospitals to treat customers like they were raw material. Doctors and hospitals don't value your time. My professor was telling us about appointment double-booking -- he learned from a nurse his child's pediatrician had 28 patients booked for the same appointment slot for one doctor. Doctors and hospitals get paid a lot and they don't want to waste one second with idle time. When my wife went into her last labor, at 1:30 am, we went into triage. We asked for the epidural. They said her blood pressure was too high and it wasn't safe. Okay. It later comes down and we ask again. Doc says we need to do a blood test first to make sure, because of the blood pressure thing. One hour for the lab. Alright. Lab results come back fine. But, now the anaesthesiologist (sp?) is busy with a c-section. Another hour passes. At 5 am, we finally get the epidural. At 6:11, the baby is out.
my baby is now months old. and now aside from the 600 dollar I paid when I checked out, i got diffrent bills from diffrent doctors all amounting to close to 2 grand. Everyday they would draw blood from my wife, take blood pressure, monitor temperture every 4 hours, etc.. and all this has a corresponding bill. JC!!!! I mean do you really need all these ****???
I had similar experinces at the woman's hospital in the medical center. I paid like about 500 bucks and assume that's the entire hospital stay and everything. We now get all kinds of bills from anesthesiologists, pediatricians, etc. We thought when we paid for it initially, everything is included already. So I guess it's pretty normal to be billed left and right after you come home from the hospital? Sorry I just had my first kid and I'm ignorant about this stuff.
Yeah, you got to watch those ****ers. They'll bill you for stuff you never got, double-bill you, and otherwise gouge you in any way they can think of. Your insurance, likewise, will try to dodge everything and leave you with the bill. That you're soo tired and beat down from having to deal with the hospital and the insurance company that you send them checks just to make them leave you alone. That was my experience with the first kid. I've got better insurance for the second, and I haven't gotten any unjustified bills yet, but I'm still waiting for the shoe to drop.
The blood draws etc.. are ordered by the doctor who is not payed for ordering (i.e. there is no incentive for a doctor to order more tests than necessary as there is no kick back). So the blood tests may that were ordered may have seemed excessive, but at least you know they were ordered without ulterior motives.
The doctor also isn't the one who has to pay the bills. This is a principal-agent dilemma, where the person making the decision isn't the one who pays. They might be sympathetic to your wallet, because you are their patient. They might be sympathetic to the hospital, where they get a lot of their income. I'm glad doctors aren't incentivized to spend patients' money, but they do have an interest in the hospital doing well. Doctors always like to do extra, "just to be on the safe side."
Actually, a doctor simply has privelages at the hospital. The income of the hospital and the income of the doctor are completely seperated, hence the 3 or 4 different bills. The doctor almost never sees a hospital bill and I bet the majority can't tell you how much the blood draw or imaging test costs (for non out of pocket patients). Also regarding the last statement, I think it is true that most docs err on the side of caution. Perhaps even over order labs, images and meds. I would rather be cautious and thorough, than miss something.
