Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Health care with a conscience?

I am finally getting my bills and paperwork in order from Pumpkins birth and I can tell you why health care is so screwy. He was born at home (by accident - you can read all about it here). We were transferred to the hospital by ambulance, and spent about 5 hours there. The total hospital bill for us was $5975.95 or $1195.19/hour. I think my favorite part is that they charged us (yes, a separate charge for each of us - even though Pumpkin never left my sight) for a semi private room from 6/13 to 6/14. Hmmmmm. We were in L&D, not recovery and we were not there overnight! Who is getting screwed here? So an uncomplicated, unmedicated, unassisted birth that did not happen at the hospital, a few stitches for me and a quick shot of vitamin K and the once over for the little man is really expensive! But guess what??? If I had been in the hospital and had my blood pressure monitored 875 thousand times while in labor, and if we had started the cascade of interventions that is prone to happen in L&D, they would have been able to charge our insurance sooooo much more! Maybe that's why that nurse was so hopped up to give me a shot of pitocin to get the placenta out....more $ for the hospital. Never mind that I didn't need it and I'd be in agonizing pit contractions (trust me - they are not like natural contractions) and my little man could just nurse to get surges going for me. I don't know where I stand on all this wrangling about health care, but clearly we need to address the playing of games to increase profits. 'Nough said.

No comments: