How is this surgery?

[niccig]

I had a stroboscopy to check out my vocal cords have recovered since thyroid surgery. They have a device with a camera on the end that they put in my mouth. And without gagging I have to say certain sounds. They do spray a numbing spray in your mouth so you don't gag - I still do.

I get the Dr's bill and it's classified as SURGERY and they charge $880 to insurance, not all of that is covered of course, but I have to pay $254 as it goes on my deductible. New insurance, so not sure why it's against deductible and not a % of costs as other things are. Have to look into that.

I get that it is a procedure, but how is me sitting in a chair while a speech therapist puts the stroboscopy in my mouth, count as SURGERY. It takes 15 mins to do it. $880 for ins/$254 for me for 15 mins? You have got to be joking..my voice is getting better, I'm back in speech therapy to fine tune things and make it stronger...and I will do all the maintenance exercises in the world so I don't have to go back for another SURGERY stroboscopy that is going to cost me $254 for 15 mins.

[bnme]

My DH gets statements like this EVERY time he goes to the ENT and is 'scoped'. I mean just for routine visits to follow up on his sinus trouble/allergies. Dr. gets about 1k from our insurance each time! Luckily we only pay the co-pay.

[lilycat88]

The same way I got billed $350 for "surgery" when a podiatrist trimmed my ingrown toenail so I could put off having it actually fixed until after my father's funeral. I guess that did actually involve a sharp object. I wasn't even there for that...I was getting an injection for nerve pain...it was just something she did 'cause I told her it hurt but couldn't have the procedure done that day. It was nail clippers for goodness sake.

[niccig]

The same way I got billed $350 for "surgery" when a podiatrist trimmed my ingrown toenail so I could put off having it actually fixed until after my father's funeral. I guess that did actually involve a sharp object. I wasn't even there for that...I was getting an injection for nerve pain...it was just something she did 'cause I told her it hurt but couldn't have the procedure done that day. It was nail clippers for goodness sake.

Wow!! Nail clippers are SURGERY!!!

And some people wonder why we have the highest cost of health care and the least people insured...I know it's not just on the side of Dr's, the health care industry including insurance and pharmaceutical companies are in there too.

[niccig]

The same way I got billed $350 for "surgery" when a podiatrist trimmed my ingrown toenail so I could put off having it actually fixed until after my father's funeral. I guess that did actually involve a sharp object. I wasn't even there for that...I was getting an injection for nerve pain...it was just something she did 'cause I told her it hurt but couldn't have the procedure done that day. It was nail clippers for goodness sake.

Wow!! Nail clippers are SURGERY!!!

And some people wonder why we have the highest cost of health care and the least people insured...I know it's not just on the side of Dr's, the health care industry including insurance and pharmaceutical companies are in there too.

[jal]

... New insurance, so not sure why it's against deductible and not a % of costs as other things are. Have to look into that...

If your insurance is anything like what I previously had, anything that is "Professional Services" first requires that you met the detuctable before getting into the % of cost thing".

Other wise, the simple way to explain it is that the health insurance has ways of doing things that are so rediculously complex, that the summary sheets you recieve regarding your insurance is nearly meaningless, and it's so complex their own employees don't know how it works.

As a recent example, I contacted the insurance company just before the baby was due to determine an estimate of out-of-pocket costs I could expect for the birth so that I could get the money detucted from my paycheck pretax (flexible spending account for those familier with it). Their answer was in the ball park of $250-300. When all the paper work was done, the actual number was $750-1000. (i.e. what the INSURANCE company told me was off by a factor of THREE!!!)

[niccig]

Well to add to my insurance woes, I sliced my finger getting DS lunch, and it was more than a bandaid could handle. Thankfully we had just finished a play date, and I called my friend, who turned her car around and came back to get DS. I called the insurance company to find an urgent care they contract with, to be told the nearest is 15 miles away, in LA traffic that will take me over an hour. They told me to go to the hospital ER instead and pay $100 copay. I knew that would take the rest of the day. I called a couple of urgent cares near me, and there is one that takes my insurance that's only 5 mins away, I do not know why the insurance customer service rep. could not find that one when she looked. There was no one in the waiting room, I was in and out in about 45 minutes with 3 stitches, a tetnus shot and a $50 copay. I'll wait to see what the rest of the bill is for this..

[ha98ed14]

Oh Nicci! What a week you are having! I hope the rest is incident free.

[niccig]

Oh Nicci! What a week you are having! I hope the rest is incident free.

Oh no, it gets better.

I woke up last Sunday with my period and a head cold. Today I have some ear pain, so I think I could be getting an ear infection from the cold. I have to go back to Urgent Care tomorrow for them to look at the stitches, so I'll get them to check out the ear as well. With all the going-ons of yesterday, I put DS's water bottle in my swim bag without doing it up properly. Everything was drenched including my small purse that had my phone and iPod Touch - those dried out and still work, so it could have been worse. I had to cancel 2 speech therapy appointments as the cold as made my voice all raspy, so I figured speech therapy would be pointless.

I think it's just my week to have EVERYTHING go wrong.