A few examples for those wondering: * the total cost for over a week stay was a couple hundred dollars - very affordable! * certain painkillers banned in the USA were the first line of defense there * getting very strong pain killers was next to impossible - I think we probably only got it because we were family members of the anesthesiologist, and he knew we needed it. And it took nearly 24 hours of agonized pain before we could finally get them * nurses are not trained to put in IVs - we needed an MD for that. And the MD had a lot of things to do and we had to wait quite awhile even though there were many nurses around. In the USA, I think most people with the title of nurse can do that
I think some other places around the world use the title nurse for what may be a medical assistant in the US. (No clue about Germany though)
That's very odd. Nurses do that all the time in Norway.
When I was starting my career, I had to go to an ER that was out of network, I checked with my insurance and they said they would cover it. They decided after all not to honor their word and charged me 10’s of thousands of dollars.
Being young and independent, this was devastating, despite having a good job, good insurance, etc.
I largely credit this with my push to move to Europe, and have never looked back.
Sometimes knowing you can get any healthcare you need without it potentially a bankrupting you is it’s own reward.
That's the insanity here. You simply can't protect yourself reliably from overcharging. Hospitals and insurances do whatever they want and good luck to you fixing mistakes. I find it really hard to understand how people can be defending such a system.
There is no fun surprises like finding out that while your surgeon and hopsital were in-network your anaesthetist was out of network.
This practice has been outlawed this year.
It’s not so great for those in the middle.