He actually tried to make an appointment, but he hadn’t specified a Primary Care Physician through his HMO and none of the local doctors were accepting new patients. And radioactive spider bites are going to require a referral to a specialist. Good luck with that.
Spiderman: Into the US Healthcare System
Spiderman: Into the Kafkaesque
I almost choked on my tea when I read this. 😂
Just herniated a disc and was told it’s really bad. Can’t afford treatment so I go back to full duty at work with a physical bulge in my spine. Not really sure why I’m paying $600/m with no damn benefit
One bump and you’re in a wheelchair. Hope you get better.
If you can afford physical therapy it’s very worth it. It probably won’t fix it, but it can reduce the amount of pain you’re in.
I tried calling around. The cheapest is $40/session and could range from 10-20 sessions due to how bad it is. I don’t have the spare money for that. I make $120 at the end of the month and I can’t even save that most of the time due to surprise expenses all the time.
If you can afford the $40 once they will probably be willing to work with you on exercises that you can do until you can afford another session. Patients having trouble affording it is a very common problem, and they’re used to modifying plans on the fly to accommodate patient needs.
Sorry dude, I know it’s fucking awful to be living with a herniated disc.
Thank you for this advice! I spoke with them and they were able to help me by sending me home with a plan. I really appreciate your advice because I was really defeated over this.
That’s great dude!! I’m really glad you were able to get some help and I hope the PT exercises work out for you.
I’m not American, and just wondering if it’s a requirement to have the $600/m taken from your pay, which I’m assuming is for health insurance? That’s a crazy amount to throw away every year, especially if you still have to pay extra for treatments that you need for functioning.
I’m not sure the laws and such but I only have the insurance because I have a 6y/o who does need medications and regular visits. Though we got a letter letting us know they will no longer be covering them. We have insurance through my wife who has to have it in order to cover our daughter and to add me isn’t much more so that’s the only reason I even have it.
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I got slapped with a $4000 bill for daring to go to the emergency room. Do not reccomend.
Yep. Fell and hit my head, spent a night in the hospital, $6,000 bill. With “good” insurance.
Last time I went to the emergency room was thankfully covered by worker’s comp, $10,000.
Sounds like a good excuse to not give your real information and then run after they help you
My wife was in hospital for six hours and the bill was $60,000. Luckily our insurance is great and covered it all except for our $100 copay for ER visits.
Very different from Australia where I’m originally from, where we wouldn’t have received a bill at all.
I went to Urgent Care because I got a cut in my hand from glass. It was pretty huge, but not bad, and I held it together with wraps.
In that waiting room was 20 people in front of me.
Most were disheveled. They look homeless or was struggling with mental issues.
It is absolutely insane how little resources we dedicate to not helping people with mental issues, and so they have to use other services and end up flooding these places. And my heart goes out to them. It truly does.
But I waited 4 hours before I got any help.
I had a cycling accident, bike tipped over at 40km/h (25mph) and abraded my skin away on one hand in a 2cm (1 inch) circle
I got an appointment at my local doctor at zero cost, but it was almost a week later. Doctor confirmed it was healing well.
It’s cheap here in Australia, but there can be a wait when it’s not urgent
Though once in hospital for suspected heart problem (it was actually just panic attacks) someone was in for spider bites. Redbacks (practically the same spider as the black widow) had nested in the space between his bed head and the wall, and he had been bitten several times was trying to retrieve something that had fallen behind the bed. He was not having a good day
In 2002, health insurance wasn’t as bad as it is now. It was around 2005 when it really went to shit.
To be fair. In a developed country with free health care the doctor probably would have either sent him home to sleep it off or maybe to a specialist where it takes months to get an appointment.
We’ve got good insurance and we are thousands of dollars in medical debt and about to get in more because of a mystery illness I have.
Personally, I’ve got bitten by a spider around a month ago.
I know what spiders are dangerous here, it wasn’t one of those. My foot was swollen for a couple of days, and I could have gone to a doctor at any time. But getting out to the doctor, explaining something weird, making a battery of exams, all while sick, and for no treatment at all really sucks.
If he lived here, there would probably never be a SpiderMan… so… I guess it’s good that he lives in the US 🤷?
Or he didn’t want to spend 12 hours waiting in emergency in Canada or the Uk?
Buddy, in America we could wait 12 hours, get a $1000 bill to look at it, then wait 12 weeks to actually get treatment if the radioactive spider bite requires referral to a specialist, followed by a $4000+ bill if the only radioarachnidologist is “out of network”…
You left out the part where after the 12 week wait for treatment your referral expired and now need a new one before they’ll see you.
Are you implying you don’t also have to wait in America? Lmao.
Yes. We just die.
You only wait that long if they’ve determined you’re not actually an emergency.
What’s the definition of emergency?
If you are actively dying or at risk of sudden death you get to cut the line. If you’re waiting a long time in the ER it’s because there are people sicker than you, or a lot of people as sick as you in front of you. Stable but needs treatment is basically the bottom of the list.
Welcome to literally all emergency rooms anywhere. They’re emergency rooms, the bigger the emergency, the further up the line you move. A spider bite in many instances is not that big of an emergency. A spider bite from an experimental radioactive spider with who knows what done to it? That’s at the “getting a government agency involved” level of emergency.
Last time I was in a U.S. Emergency Room, I was there a good 10-12 hours. The time before that, it was 8 or 9. And both times I came early in the day when there was almost no one in the waiting room.
