Share on bsky
View this post on Instagram
Not all stories end wrapped up in a neat, little bow. Sometimes there are loose ends.
Sometimes, a story leads to more questions than answers.
The end of my honeymoon is where this story begins.
After returning home from our wedding, a slew of familiar symptoms greeted me almost immediately. A trip to urgent care confirmed my suspicions: I had a UTI (urinary tract infection).
The clinic visit was quick. I described my symptoms to the doctor matter-of-factly, as this was not my first rodeo. I’ve been prone to UTIs all my life. I know the symptoms intimately.
I told the doctor a friend had given us a bottle of Viagra as a wedding present. Tell the doctor everything, right? He chuckled as he spoke, “We call it ‘honeymoon-itus.’ You’d be surprised how many newlyweds we see. Give us a few minutes to process your urine sample,” he said with a grin, before leaving the room.
He returned minutes later, “Yeah, not surprised, you’ve got a UTI. What pharmacy would you like us to send your prescription to?” I nodded knowingly as I followed him out of the room. Including the peeing-in-a-cup part, the visit took about 20 minutes. And that was the end of that.
Until, I got the bill.
The invoice was five lines deep in lab services totaling $1,710. For a urinary tract infection. My insurance plan required I pay a third of the costs. My jaw dropped.
I immediately drove to urgent care. “There must be a mistake here,” I said, sliding the bill through the slit in the plexiglass window. The woman seated behind the partition barely glanced up before directing me to wait. A moment later I was standing in front of a guy named Mario from Billing. He looked over the invoice and explained the inflated cost was due to the request for more extensive lab work.
“The doctor made no mention of requesting extensive testing, and in fact seemed to consider it your run-of-the-mill UTI,” I said sharply. He half-nodded as he made a photocopy of the bill.
Several hours later, I was on the phone with Dirk, a manager from the lab. His name reminded me of a handsome cowboy with a square jaw. He was friendly, in a car salesman kind of way, and assured me that he could help and potentially eliminate the problem all together. His words: “Between you, me, and the wall, our lab doesn’t need the money. You don’t have to pay this bill.”
He told me there is no collections department, and I was just one signature away from wiping my hands clean of the whole thing. Dirk was a fast talker and seemed to make his own rules. “By the way, they don’t fact check when you fill out the hardship form,” he added. My mind wandered as I held the line, picturing Dirk on a white horse, whistle resting on a string around his neck, unwilling to keep the secrets any longer.
Healthcare in this country is the new Wild West. Lawless cowboys have traded in their chaps for slick suits and doctor smocks. Today’s cowboys peddle pills, not livestock. They order extensive, unnecessary lab tests too. They are cogs on a flawed wheel.
Healthcare professionals may initially get into this industry to help people, but dangle a shiny “gift” in front of them and watch how their humanity crumbles. I’m not saying all doctors are like this, but without proper regulations in place, it becomes too easy for those less moral to go rogue.
It’s just one example of how we, as Americans, are robbed of our inalienable right to decent and affordable healthcare.
And that’s because healthcare is a business in this country—it’s not a right. The system treats its patients, its people, like customers, like consumers, like cattle.
Insurance companies are wealthy beyond what’s ethical.
Pharmaceutical CEOs have their eyes on profit margins, not on your health.
Doctors are out to gain on the backs of people seeking fair and quality care.
There are no rules.
I don’t claim to have the answers here. But I do know we should be asking more questions. We should be holding our government and private insurance companies to a standard of ethics. We should expect our health to be prioritized, not monetized.
We live with exceedingly high insurance premiums and deductibles. The cost of a monthly insurance plan is as much as my mortgage. And what about those who live without health insurance?
Do you know what leads to sickness and disease? Stress. Do you know what leads to stress? The fear of going bankrupt just to stay alive…or in my case, to cure a case of honeymoon-itus.
~
Read 0 comments and reply