Healthcare / ER rant…

So my 13 year old daughter got hurt in the youth room at church last night.  A little 12 year old boy thought it would be cute to antagonize her and then run away.  Except she is deceptivly fast and he tried to run through a door and pull it closed behind him.  She runs into the door and her forearm takes the brunt of the damage.  The way it was swelling, I was not sure if it might be a hairline fracture or just a bruise.  So we decided to go to the ER just in case after consulting with a doctor who happened to be at the church.

We arrive at the ER around 7:40PM.  The waiting room is full of the people with no health insurance that go to the ER for the sniffles because the governement pays for that but not a normal doctors office visit.  An older man comes in with a cane.  I would guess in upper 50’s maybe 60’s.  He tries to start a conversation with my daughter which I try to politely put an end to.  He started telling us how he was in a car wreck and how bad he hurts.  He is moaning, groaning, burping, etc.  Then he gets up and walks over to the TV and just starts changing channels even though there are 8 other people in the room watching it.

We finally get called in the the initial check-in room.  We go through the “what happened?”, “Where does it hurt?”, age, blood pressure, etc.  Then we get taken to a bed in the HR with curtains between them.  The car reck man gets moved to the bed on one side and I over hear that the other side is a woman with bronchitis who waited to go to teh ER because her medicaid makes her pay a co-pay to go to the normal doctor so she goes to the ER where there is no copay.  The man from the car wreck explains that his ambulance chasing lawyer is going to pay all of medical bills and he has no insurance and no other way to pay.  It sounds like he has been through this before.  Then the nurse hands him an extra form and says if you call this number withint 30 days, this charity organization will take 60% off his bill for him.  WHAT?!?!?!

So my daughter finally gets taken to x-ray.  She come back.  We over hear the nurses discussing what they want to order for their next meal.  The workes ramble back and forth.  An hour later, the doctor walks in and says he looked at x-rays but sees no break.  He says put ice on it and take ibuprofen.  Good.  Not broken.  We have ice and ibuprofen at home.  This is a school night so let’s go…. WRONG!  We wait another hour for paperwork.  I finally approach a nurse and say, “Listen, I can tell y’all ar ebusy and need the bed for the ambulance coming in that I heard on the radio.  The doctor said it is not broken and she is fine.  Can we just go?”   NO…  No…..  no…..    We are still wainting on them to print the forms and enter our data in the computer.  We finally get released around 11:00PM!  They giv emy 13 year old daughter a Lortab and a prescription for more.  She has never taken a narcotic drug in her life.  The nurse laughs, “Oh, you will sleep good tonight.”  I had to ask for a sling for her to put the arm in so she does not hav eto hold it up in the air the whole time (the position where the pain is the least.)

So how much of my inflated bill is going to go to pay for the woman with bronchitis who is playing the system to avoid a medicare co-pay and the car wreck victim who appears to be trying to profit off the ambulance chasers work and his injury?  :sigh: