Here is the reason you have to have medical insurance while you are in the US waiting for EAD/AP

[Crazy Cat 39,624]

1 minute ago, britishandusa said:

Unfortunately, most providers should always test female patients for a possible pregnancy. Every time before I go into a procedure with a female patient, I am require to test just in case and 99% of the time they always insist they aren't and 9/10 they usually are right. However, it is always best to be safe than sorry. I did have one patient who swore up and down there was no way she couldn't be pregnant and it turned out she was 4 weeks pregnant and had no idea. These things are put in place to protect the patient and the medical staff (aka prevent a law suit if something were to arise)

As a former health care professional, I agree that it should be mandatory for that very reason.

[optlh0 19]

15 hours ago, Loren Y said:

My fiancee came here end of November 2018, we married February 2019, and first thing I did was add her to my insurance

My company covers domestic partners as well as spouses. I was able to add my fiance to my insurance the day she arrived as a domestic partner (We just needed to sign an affidavit that we live together and are in a committed relationship). Then once we married we changed her status to spouse. Thankfully she didn't require any medical insurance before our marriage but she had it if she did

Edited April 18, 2019 by optlh0

[Mrsjackson 300]

15 hours ago, Loren Y said:

Just throwing this out there because people don't understand how messed up the medical system is here in the United States, and think they can skate by without insurance for a few months. My fiancee came here end of November 2018, we married February 2019, and first thing I did was add her to my insurance ( Thank God). April 5th 2019 a Friday night at about 10pm she is dying with pain on her right side. I can tell its not good at all, so we rush to the ER Friday night for help. I'll spare you all the boring nightmarish details of getting health care here in the United States, that is another topic in it's own. What I want to point out that this hospital bill for the ER visit, Testing, emergency Surgery, and 1 day in the hospital billed out at 60,108.21. That is 60 thousand dollars just for the hospital, then there is the Surgeon, Radiology, Lab, and the anesthesiologist, that will be billing separate from the hospital to a tune of another 10,000.00. This is for a simple surgery performed over 300,000 times a year here in the US with no complications or anything that required special care. This is why CO's are always worried you will become a public charge. this is one short trip to the hospital, for a simple surgery. Know this going in that you could be facing this or worse if something happens while you try to get employment or insurance and think it won't happen to us, because I thought the same thing. This is just one page of the 13 page bill below.

 

Good news about this whole nightmare is that I had no problem getting the EAD card expedited with a 60 thousand dollar medical bill. So, for the record this will qualify you for Financial Hardship in the eyes of USCIS.

Yikes. Always good to remind people. I myself was not as organized as I should have been despite knowing better. No excuses. I know the pregnancy test was a blood test but about two weeks ago I took 3 urine tests I bought at the dollar store for $1 each. Accurate positive results on all three. Grand total of $3. Lol. 

[SalishSea 16,883]

2 hours ago, cyclone27 said:

Yuna - oh it works that way. I know plenty of people refused to pay who didn’t have insurance. They ignored the harassment, and didn’t care about their credit. Eventually the hospitals just wrote the debt off because they realized they were never ever going to get it.

And I know plenty of people who lost their homes and went into bankruptcy following a cancer dx.  Many of them are my own patients.

 

Please pay your medical bills.  Those "write offs" create higher costs for all of us.

[cyclone27 710]

As for credit - I asked them were they not worried about messing it up - they said we already have credit card, house and car. 

 

Yes I begrudgingly pay for medical bills with insurance, but ticks me off when I see some ridiculous charges. 

 

 

[SalishSea 16,883]

1 hour ago, missileman said:

As a former health care professional, I agree that it should be mandatory for that very reason.

Same here!  And every time I have posted to that effect here, there has been backlash/mod action.

[SalishSea 16,883]

1 hour ago, Mrsjackson said:

I know the pregnancy test was a blood test but about two weeks ago I took 3 urine tests I bought at the dollar store for $1 each. Accurate positive results on all three. Grand total of $3.

That is because it is a Made in China plastic qualitative (yes/no) test kit, as opposed to a quantitative serum B-Hcg test performed by lab professionals.  In obstetrics, a quantitative result measures the progression of a normal pregnancy.

[agrabs 237]

This thread should be a mandatory read for anyone wanting to bring their elderly  parents here to live.  Most people coming here on a k1 or spouse visa will be able to be added on to their spouse"s insurance or get coverage thru their employer once they are working. However I feel like people don't give this enough consideration when bringing parents here who will be unable to work.  Too often they say they are not worried about health insurance because they make plenty of money to pay  for their parents care.    I don't think they understand how unrealistic that is.  

[NigeriaorBust 4,087]

3 hours ago, cyclone27 said:

Yuna - oh it works that way. I know plenty of people refused to pay who didn’t have insurance. They ignored the harassment, and didn’t care about their credit. Eventually the hospitals just wrote the debt off because they realized they were never ever going to get it.

 But I raised an honest , hardworking, ethical man. If he owes it he will pay it even if it means a diet of rice and beans for a bit.

[Mrsjackson 300]

23 minutes ago, Jorgedig said:

That is because it is a Made in China plastic qualitative (yes/no) test kit, as opposed to a quantitative serum B-Hcg test performed by lab professionals.  In obstetrics, a quantitative result measures the progression of a normal pregnancy.

Yeah I understand I’m just saying the made in China worked just fine. I’ve never been given a blood test to confirm a pregnancy. My doctor only does that if it’s too early for a urine test. Urine tests are considered accurate, and ultrasounds confirm. 

[SalishSea 16,883]

28 minutes ago, Mrsjackson said:

Yeah I understand I’m just saying the made in China worked just fine. I’ve never been given a blood test to confirm a pregnancy. My doctor only does that if it’s too early for a urine test. Urine tests are considered accurate, and ultrasounds confirm. 

Yes.  But some patients require serial serum Hcg testing to confirm that the numbers are consistent with a normally developing pregnancy.  And these tests are performed in labs by qualified professionals.  That is why they cost more than a dollar store item.

[PolskaKielbasia 67]

To be fair these are the "chargemaster" prices billed to insurance. The hospital will not  receive anything close to that from insurance.

 

A buddy of mine was between jobs for a few months and forwent COBRA (basically he chose to go without insurance) thinking "it'll only be a few weeks to a few months". Spent a night in the ER to the tune of $50k after he fell of a balcony while drunk one night. The hospital settled with him for $7k cash, and let him pay it off over 36 monthly payments @ 0% interest.

Edited April 18, 2019 by PolskaKielbasia

[Mrsjackson 300]

20 minutes ago, Jorgedig said:

Yes.  But some patients require serial serum Hcg testing to confirm that the numbers are consistent with a normally developing pregnancy.  And these tests are performed in labs by qualified professionals.  That is why they cost more than a dollar store item.

Haha ya I get that. 

[Loren Y 2,743]

Since everyone is enjoying the charges, here is a few other pages with even more craziness. This is real, no Photoshop, know this is the reality of a hospital in the US. look at the 22k charge for the 68 minutes the surgery took, then another 6800 for level 1 care for 68 minutes.. I was paying over 424.00 a minute for my wife to lay on the table in the OR, just to be in the OR suite. Imagine if you had a 6-7 hour surgery at 424.00 a minute. And just as a side note, this hospital did say if I had cash in a big bag nearby they would settle for 15%, but that is still 9180.00 roughly, so you would be out 10k without insurance, even if you could get them to settle for 10%, were still talking 6000.00. And you thought USCIS fees were bad. I mean, they charged me 354.00 plus for the bag to put the appendix in after they removed it. I told them I had a walmart bag in the car they could use and save me 354.00.

Edited April 18, 2019 by Loren Y

[Mike E 11,726]

Most hospital charges are inflated. If one has insurance, the insurer first forces the hospital to reduce nearly every charge to a reasonable value, and then after deductible and co-pay, pays the hospital off.

 

For this reason, even the pre-ACA (Obamacare) high deductible major medical plans were great because $60,000 bills would be reduced to $1000, even if the patient had to pay 100% of the $1000 that was within the annual deductible. The ACA individual plans mostly suck due to the high premiums with high deductibles, but at least the insurer will reduce the bill.