I thought anything in the US is ridiculous amounts of money, when it’s related to health/hospital.
Call around and ask "What is your self cash pay cost?".
Most people don't know to ask that and if you don't speak the magic phrase then you get billed at the rate the office would normally charge insurance. Not all places have self pay discounts.
Some states have special programs for hospitals but they vary wildly by state and you have to know how to navigate that particular program and be very patient. Some are need based so if you are above a pretty low income threshold you won't qualify.
There are definitely ways to rack up big bills fast, though, just by being unlucky.
I’ve never heard of this. Private practice? If so, count your blessings until they get hoovered up by PE and quadruple their prices overnight.
So they exit the whole system and go to a direct "you pay me monthly for access" model. Hundred bucks a person or so per month, factor a ~25% discount for families. Doc gets to keep a cap on the limit of incoming patients to manage their own day pretty nicely while getting a recurring stream of cash paid direct to him.
Even better if your wife's also a doctor (hey, healthcare partners run together a lot!), you just band together, see 5-600 patients a month as a couple, and pull in a decent $million or so on a fairly light workload and selling extra things like GLP-1s and wellness programs for a year's work. Triple-points if you're doing this in rural America - that million might not be a lot to the big techies out there, but that's big bucks that go far in some really nice places tucked away in the trees and forests.
You still need insurance for the rest of the 'stuff' they don't do, but some of these DPCs are doing everything they can in house (like prescribing and dispensing generics at the office directly in a single visit to lower your extra out of pocket costs).
If you're on a high deductible healthcare plan with an HSA and an employer contributing healthily into it, these direct-patient-care clinics may be an attractive option if you're reasonably healthy and young.
My United Healthcare plan limits my out of pocket expenses to $2,000 per year. Like most Americans, "United Healthcare" is just the company that does the billing and adjudication. My Employer sets policy and pays for treatment at the end of the day.