Little patients, big medical bills
From $1,075 ear drops to $937 toe cream, this is how young patients are billed at the ER.
Last October, Bradley Sroka took his 1-year-old daughter, Margot, to the local emergency room. The little girl had managed to tie a piece of her own blonde hair around her toe, causing it to swell and turn purple.
The hair had left a clean circular cut around Margot’s toe, which spurted blood each time her parents tried to inspect it.
“We had no idea how deep the cut was, whether we could just wrap a Band-Aid around it,” Sroka says. “It was like nothing we’d ever encountered.”
Margot turned out to be fine — a physician assistant inspected her toe, made sure the hair was gone, and applied an antibacterial ointment.
A month later, the Sroka family got the bill: $937.25 for the 29-minute visit. They are responsible for the entire bill, which was within their deductible.
The Srokas tried to avoid the emergency room because they knew it would be expensive. But it was a Saturday, and Margot’s pediatrician office was closed. They did take her to Bradley’s doctor office, which was open, but staff there determined that they weren’t equipped to deal with tiny toes. The emergency room was the only place to seek medical treatment.
“At the time, I just had no idea how to treat it,” says Sroka. “The emergency room was our only option.”
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The Srokas’ bill is among many that fit a pattern: Worried parents took their children to the emergency room because their pediatrician’s office was closed, often on the weekends or at night. Some tried to go to urgent or immediate care facilities but were turned away because those offices often do not provide pediatric care.
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https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/little-patients-big-bills/ar-AAvI4i4?li=BBnb7Kz#image=2
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