AHHHHHHGGGGGGGG!!!!!!!!!!!

I haven’t written in awhile because I have been racking my brain with this entry. I wasn’t sure if I should approach this subject or not. I am getting up on my soap box. Leave now if you don’t want to read further. You were warned.

Most of you know that my husband had his appendix taken out back in March (if you didn’t, now you do). I have to explain the time line because it is relevant so bear with me.

Thursday-All day and night
Persistent stomach Pain

Friday-
8:00am – 1:00 pm-Huge fight over whether or not he should go to the doctors or not. I win.
2:00pm- He sees the doctor at the walk in clinic (I was unable to get an appt at his regular doctors office).
3:00pm-The doctor at the walk in clinic sends him to the emergency room.
4:00pm-I pick up the kids and bring them to the hospital. Spoke to the surgeon. They schedule him for surgery
5:00pm-I take kids back home for dinner
9:00pm-I go back to the hospital (kids are in bed)
10:00pm-He is drugged up and ready for surgery.
11:00pm-He goes into surgery.
11:30pm-The doctor comes out and says everything is fine.
11:45pm-He is back in his room still drugged up. I go home.

Saturday-
8:00am-He is up and wants to go home. He’s hungry and wants to eat.
9:00am-As soon as the doctor comes in he can be checked out.
11:00am-I take the kids with me to the hospital to pick him up (I was watching my nephews too so I had five kids with me).

So in the matter of less than 24 hours, his appendix has been taken care of.

Now onto the medical bills, this is where everything turns for the worst. For weeks, I anxiously await the bills to be delivered. No bills yet. Still waiting.

After about a month, we received a few statements from our medical insurance. The first one not too bad, the second one not too bad, but the third one I open up…I know the suspense is killing you…my mouth drops open and a few impolite words escape (no children were around).

Remember he was there less than 24 hours and as you recall from the schedule he didn’t go into surgery until 11:00pm. Can you guess how much the bill was just for the facility?

A little over $25,000. HE WAS ADMITTED AROUND 9:00PM AND LEFT 11:00AM THE NEXT MORNING. This is double the cost of one of my pregnancies when I stayed for two full days. This doesn’t even include the emergency room costs or the walk in clinic costs or the surgeon who performed the surgery. By this time, I am so pissed off. I call my husband yelling about how the medical industry is such a scam and we are being robbed legally.

After I calm down, I begin to think rationally (at least rationally for me). I put together a plan. I look up all the phone numbers for all the hospitals in the Milwaukee/Waukesha area. I call everyone to get an estimate just on the facility costs of this type of surgery. Then I call the hospital to get an itemized list.

So the hospitals that actually called me back are as follows:

Waukesha Memorial $16K
Columbia St Marys $18K

So where did West Allis Memorial come up with their number? It is still a mystery to me. I have yet to actually pay a bill, but I will let you know if my complaining helps reduce any of them. It is a full time job to tackle the medical industry.