How to Save 97.7% on Healthcare (she said)
by Heather 23 Aug 2011Let me digress from our adventures and musings for a moment …
Last week I visited my foot doctor. I had been experiencing some discomfort in my foot for several months, and while running through the leafy hills near our home at Lake Barcroft my foot began to hurt – a lot. I quit running after 3 miles and limped home. I didn’t run again for a week, and the pain subsided to the ‘mildly annoying’ category. However, it didn’t get better. After a week staying off my foot almost entirely proved ineffective, I went to the doctor.
Dr. Cannon’s diagnosis took about 30 seconds. I described my pain, he gently probed the bottom my foot (here? YES!) and promptly ordered an Xray. Once the film came back from the lab it was obvious that my foot was broken – one of the sesamoid bones on my right foot was fractured. He immediately strapped me into a walking boot and explained that I would need to wear this contraption for the next four months.
Knowing that I like to be active, Dr. Cannon prescribed an ultrasonic bone stimulator to speed my recovery. He passed my name along to the folks selling the Exogen 4000 which I believe is the only ultrasonic stimulator currently on the market. This is where it gets interesting.
We have a high-deductible health insurance plan. For those of you blissfully unaware of what that means, we pay nearly $500 a month for the privilege of paying the first $10,000 of our own medical expenses each year. Oh, and because we are so ‘unheathy’ we are actually lucky to purchase insurance at all. We’ve been rejected in the past – and we’re (relatively) young and healthy! Our insurance company touts their prowess at negotiating excellent prices from doctors and hospitals. So, even if our bills never mount to over $10,000 per year, our insurance supposedly still saves us money.
Once the folks at Smith and Nephew (the manufacturer) talked with my insurance company, they contacted me and told me that the insurance company’s negotiated rate for the unit was $4,500. But, the company would be willing to offer me a discount based on my financial situation since they are sympathetic to folks with high-deductible plans. After running through a quick analysis of our finances, the company offered me the bone stimulator for $3,825. However, if I simply purchased the bone stimulator directly from them and didn’t ask them to do any paperwork for my insurance company, the price was $675.
Seriously folks, who negotiates for my insurance company? I spent 5 minutes talking to a really nice woman from Smith and Nephew and without even trying was offered a price 85% less than the price negotiated by my insurer! I can’t adequately express my frustration at the status quo, but I won’t go into a diatribe on the state of American health care. This is a happy blog.
Here is where the story ends – Ebay. There are hundreds of bone stimulators for sale on Ebay! I purchased a used bone stimulator for $100. That is 97.7% less than the price originally negotiated by my insurance company. Insanity.
…. so I digress. Nuff said.
Stay clear of a “diatribe on the state of American health care”, I would feel the need to have a whole debate in the comments. Interesting post, wish it worked for all healthcare issues to get the 97.7% savings.
Agreed. I can’t even go there — I’ll have an aneurysm.
In the world of healthcare issues, a broken foot is pretty minor. I haven’t even had to take a Tylenol, and it’s clearly been broken for weeks. Wish your troubles were as easy as mine, Mark!
Thanks for this Heather. I reminds me of how incredibly fortunate we are here in Canada – we pay maybe $100 a month MAX (probably a lot less) for our portion of our health insurance for both of us, and neither of us are in particularly wonderful health for our age. I just purchased a TENS muscle stimulator unit that was regularly priced at $316 – our insurance covered 80% of the cost – as they would have for any similar medical device – we are fortunate indeed! (I also think the insurance companies are completely ripping off the American people – inflating prices like you have demonstrated when you could purchase direct from the company and get such an incredible discount? Wow – boggles the mind, doesn’t it?)
I am stunned at how surreal my conversations with the medical device company were. Did that seriously just happen to me? Maybe we should move to Canada?
Kent’s sent in his papers for his proof of citizenship ages ago (he’s technically a citizen, just never got any paperwork on it). Plus, we already have GREAT family there!
*Stunned silence from the Australians*
…It’s like a post-apocalyptic story…
*Never going to America*
Seriously, what the!! How on earth did it get that bad in America? Did it become a third-world country while we weren’t looking?
I’m never going to get a handle on the state of things over there, I suspect. I’m so sorry for you, US!
Try getting insurance with a pre-existing condition, you can’t at any price ! BTW check out some of these conditions, serious stuff like an allergy or in some cases pregnancy. I’ve been lucky to sneek in through Cobra from my former employer but that only lasts another year then NOTHING. Our great system.
(and it’s been law for years now that you can’t be excluded for pre-existing conditions, but that doens’t mean they won’t charge an arm and a leg for them)
OH……MY…….WORD!!!
That is ridiculous.
Good for you!!
I actually bought one of these ultrasound bone stimulators off of EBay for my dog- for under $200 including shipping. The original owner likely had it paid for by their insurance company, didn’t want to use it so sold it- there are always dozens of them available on EBay. The skeeziest thing that the manufacturer does is refuse to make the Exogen battery rechargeable- though there is no reason the device wouldn’t continue to work properly if it was. So my Vet Ortho told me to buy the Exogen on EBay & use it til the battery dies (they last about 400 treatments, I found one that only had 19 treatments used), then throw it away and buy another one on EBay. Now we all know where to look for medical devices next time, I guess.