Shock - $3600 for ONE sleep study? Can this be right?

[49er]

i want to say my study was $5200? Sorry yours was bad, I have had 2 and both were pretty good- nice chain hotel, bed was comfy, techs were both nice, continental bfast the next day, I woulndn't mind one every few months! My ins. luckily covered it however ($30 copay if I recall?)

A perfect example of why socialized medicine is always a disaster.

Spending other people's money ...

Agree 100%

So Well and LSAT,

I guess you won't be needing emergency services if god forbid you should need them since you don't believe in spending other people's money.

So what are people who don't have health insurance or have horrible policies though not fault of their own supposed to do, particularly if they can't find suitable assistance. Die?

As one who doesn't have health insurance, is that what you wish for me in case god forbid, my savings run out?

Is that the type of society the US has become, each person for themselves?

49er

[Matty332]

Wow I was always jealous of the USA because everything seems cheaper (I was jealous until we got a Costco here, now we have savings!) but 6000 for a sleep study? Wow, they are laughing all the way to the bank!

I got my CPAP titration study done at the private sleep clinic here and it is considered TOP of the line service. I THOUGHT everything was expensive there until I saw the figures above, my study was conducted at a specially fitted out centre with pleasant rooms with climate control, pleasant decor with breakfast and as I mentioned earlier young good looking medical student sleep techs who are very friendly and not afraid of a bloke in underpants. It was 1000 bucks and I thought to myself that was expensive. I was only out of pocket 100 bucks and medicare paid the rest. Not everything is cheaper in the States I suppose.

Oh and about the socialized medicine thing, the NHS works brilliantly in the UK and everything is free medically I hear (but I may be mistaken).

Our Medicare socialized system is great - Alot would be screwed without it. It pays back about %40 of out of pocket expenses for most medical things (some procedures are free and public hospital stays are free), dental you have to pay for unless you are a pensioner whereby even doctors appts are free. The best thing about it though is that if you need more private medical care and doctors appts with tests and treatments after you are out of pocket a certain amount (maybe 3000 bucks I can't recall) you reach the 'safety net', whereby you get %80 back out of pocket expenses for the next year so it helps the people who need it most.

So what is it like in the USA? What does American Medicare provide and how does it work? Is private insurance worth it? In some American movies from the 90's I have seen, the USA is depicted as throwing people out of hospital and ER if they don't have private insurance. Is this true?

[msla]

Out of pocket $1,700, if I paid in the morning I gog a 20% discount. At that time my insurance did not cover sleep apnea. It was worth it.

[49er]

Hi Matty,

I gotta run so I will respond to what looks like some great questions when I get home tonight.

I wanted to clarify my previous post in which essentially, I inferred I would die if my savings ran out. I meant if my saving ran out and I encountered a serious medical emergency without insurance, then what?

49er

Wow I was always jealous of the USA because everything seems cheaper (I was jealous until we got a Costco here, now we have savings!) but 6000 for a sleep study? Wow, they are laughing all the way to the bank!

I got my CPAP titration study done at the private sleep clinic here and it is considered TOP of the line service. I THOUGHT everything was expensive there until I saw the figures above, my study was conducted at a specially fitted out centre with pleasant rooms with climate control, pleasant decor with breakfast and as I mentioned earlier young good looking medical student sleep techs who are very friendly and not afraid of a bloke in underpants. It was 1000 bucks and I thought to myself that was expensive. I was only out of pocket 100 bucks and medicare paid the rest. Not everything is cheaper in the States I suppose.

Oh and about the socialized medicine thing, the NHS works brilliantly in the UK and everything is free medically I hear (but I may be mistaken).

Our Medicare socialized system is great - Alot would be screwed without it. It pays back about %40 of out of pocket expenses for most medical things (some procedures are free and public hospital stays are free), dental you have to pay for unless you are a pensioner whereby even doctors appts are free. The best thing about it though is that if you need more private medical care and doctors appts with tests and treatments after you are out of pocket a certain amount (maybe 3000 bucks I can't recall) you reach the 'safety net', whereby you get %80 back out of pocket expenses for the next year so it helps the people who need it most.

So what is it like in the USA? What does American Medicare provide and how does it work? Is private insurance worth it? In some American movies from the 90's I have seen, the USA is depicted as throwing people out of hospital and ER if they don't have private insurance. Is this true?

[-tim]

Wow I was always jealous of the USA because everything seems cheaper (I was jealous until we got a Costco here, now we have savings!) but 6000 for a sleep study? Wow, they are laughing all the way to the bank!

US Medicare is only limited to some of the people Aussies would call pensioners.

Here in Australia you can have them done in private hospitals, at home or in a public hospital. The public hospitals are free but there is a waiting list but I got in with in weeks and had my second one done before the predicted wait time. I think the home ones run about $600 but it could be less.
A sleep study at the private Epworth Hospital (from the sleepiness scale named after it) is AUD$1700 (US$1650). Since Qantas will get your round trip from the USA for $1400 it looks like it might be cheaper to do the study and have a holiday.

All this expensive socialized medicine costs me a medicare tax of 1.5% of my income. My private health insurance (to cover going to a private hospital) costs me about $900 a year. Going to my doctor costs me about $50 but I get a refund for about half that in a few days. A MRI costs about $400 because the gov't tends not to pay for any part, but a CT scan is about $150 for things that tend to be self inflected and free otherwise. I figure my total costs are lower here than my co-pays were in the US. The only problem is the local CPAP machine prices are scary. $2,500 for a locally made resmed s9 auto and $250 for just about any mask.

[chunkyfrog]

For those at the bottom of the 'health chain'; it's a simple matter of survival;
with greed and corruption on one side and rampant sefishness on the other.
Laws that fail to serve all equally, will, and must, be broken.

[Al Peena]

i want to say my study was $5200? Sorry yours was bad, I have had 2 and both were pretty good- nice chain hotel, bed was comfy, techs were both nice, continental bfast the next day, I woulndn't mind one every few months! My ins. luckily covered it however ($30 copay if I recall?)

A perfect example of why socialized medicine is always a disaster.

Spending other people's money ...

Agree 100%

So Well and LSAT,

I guess you won't be needing emergency services if god forbid you should need them since you don't believe in spending other people's money.

So what are people who don't have health insurance or have horrible policies though not fault of their own supposed to do, particularly if they can't find suitable assistance. Die?

As one who doesn't have health insurance, is that what you wish for me in case god forbid, my savings run out?

Is that the type of society the US has become, each person for themselves?

49er

THANKS 49ER.

WOW, JUST STATING WHAT HAPPENED TO ME. DIDN'T KNOW THIS WAS A POLITICAL FORUM FOR DOUCHEBAG TEABAGGERS (CAN YOU BE BOTH AT THE SAME TIME? YES APPARENTLY).
Y'ALL HAVE A GOOD TIME SPOUTING YOUR "VIEWS" ABOUT WHATEVER YOU LIKE.
THIS FORUM HAS SERVED MY PURPOSE TO HELP ME UNDERSTAND THIS CPAP BUSINESS, BUT APPARENTLY I AM DONE.

[Uncle_Bob]

i want to say my study was $5200? Sorry yours was bad, I have had 2 and both were pretty good- nice chain hotel, bed was comfy, techs were both nice, continental bfast the next day, I woulndn't mind one every few months! My ins. luckily covered it however ($30 copay if I recall?)

A perfect example of why socialized medicine is always a disaster.

Spending other people's money ...

I lived in the UK for half my life and didn't have much of an issue with the socialized health care system, other than long wait times and some of the procedures that can be done. I certainly wouldn't call it a disaster.

A disaster would be if you are unable to purchase health insurance due to pre-existing conditions, then seeing your life savings go down the pan in 5 mins when the conditions continues to be an issue and you are paying out of pocket.

My wife works in a childrens hospital and they treat the children of uninsured all the time, they bring their kids into the ER with anything from a running nose with no insurance. They get care, who do you thinks pays in the end anyway?

~UB

[avi123]

Wow I was always jealous of the USA because everything seems cheaper (I was jealous until we got a Costco here, now we have savings!) but 6000 for a sleep study? Wow, they are laughing all the way to the bank!

I got my CPAP titration study done at the private sleep clinic here and it is considered TOP of the line service. I THOUGHT everything was expensive there until I saw the figures above, my study was conducted at a specially fitted out centre with pleasant rooms with climate control, pleasant decor with breakfast and as I mentioned earlier young good looking medical student sleep techs who are very friendly and not afraid of a bloke in underpants. It was 1000 bucks and I thought to myself that was expensive. I was only out of pocket 100 bucks and medicare paid the rest. Not everything is cheaper in the States I suppose.

Oh and about the socialized medicine thing, the NHS works brilliantly in the UK and everything is free medically I hear (but I may be mistaken).

Our Medicare socialized system is great - Alot would be screwed without it. It pays back about %40 of out of pocket expenses for most medical things (some procedures are free and public hospital stays are free), dental you have to pay for unless you are a pensioner whereby even doctors appts are free. The best thing about it though is that if you need more private medical care and doctors appts with tests and treatments after you are out of pocket a certain amount (maybe 3000 bucks I can't recall) you reach the 'safety net', whereby you get %80 back out of pocket expenses for the next year so it helps the people who need it most.

So what is it like in the USA? What does American Medicare provide and how does it work? Is private insurance worth it? In some American movies from the 90's I have seen, the USA is depicted as throwing people out of hospital and ER if they don't have private insurance. Is this true?

Reply,

Matty, tomorrow I'll show your post to my physical therapist who is an ex Aussie. He been here for 13 years and studied PT. He tries to fix my lower spine pain after I got an epidural steroid injection there. He also tries to fix my balancing problem by me standing on one leg for 16 seconds. I'll post his reply here.

[Sleep2Die4]

Wow I was always jealous of the USA because everything seems cheaper (I was jealous until we got a Costco here, now we have savings!) but 6000 for a sleep study? Wow, they are laughing all the way to the bank!

$6000 for a typical sleep study is fiction. Even $3600 is fiction.

If you would read the links in the posts of Avi's and Serial Killer's posts, you would know how big the fiction is.

[zoocrewphoto]

Wow I was always jealous of the USA because everything seems cheaper (I was jealous until we got a Costco here, now we have savings!) but 6000 for a sleep study? Wow, they are laughing all the way to the bank!

$6000 for a typical sleep study is fiction. Even $3600 is fiction.

If you would read the links in the posts of Avi's and Serial Killer's posts, you would know how big the fiction is.

It may not be typical, but that is what my statement from the insurance company said. And the sleep tech did say at the study that they needed at least 6 hours of data for the insurance to pay. Otherwise, it is $6000. Today, I received a bill from the neurologist. I am not sure if it is just the doctor appointment or the sleep study included. It shows two bills, and what was paid. And the paid amount includes the amount from my HRA that was mentioned on the insurance statement for the sleep study. So, if I am lucky, I have only $89.51 tp pay after the $237 from the sleep study. But I am not sure if this includes the actual sleep study.

The first thing says consultation, so I assume that is my appointment with the doctor. The other thing says sleep staging, +4 parameters.

Both the sleep study and the doctor are part of the hospital, but in two buildings separate from the hospital, so I don't know if billing would be combined or not. I can't find the statement that has the $6000 amount and the amount owed listed as $883 (after the $237 payment from my HRA account).

[The Choker]

I can't find the statement that has the $6000 amount and the amount owed listed as $883 (after the $237 payment from my HRA account).

The Medicare reimbursement rates are $780.77 for the lab and $125.37 for the physician.

Insurance companies are not so dumb that they would pay $6000 or $3600 for sleep studies. However, between them and the doctors they do produce some documents with strange looking numbers on them.

If you find your statement look at all the figures on it.

[chunkyfrog]

I think that as more people scan/save these documents, more of them will show up as evidence in a court of law.
If there isn't something illegal here, it's still not right.
Folks get ripped off bad enough; well, --support a barrister; shiv a hog.

[zoocrewphoto]

I found the actual bill for the sleep study. It does not mention sleep study on the bill. It has my name, provider, account #, service date (correct date for the sleep study, and only date I have been there), total charges ($6392.18), payments ($3572.48), adjustment (-$1981.58), and balance owing ($883.12).

[Cereal Killer]

I found the actual bill for the sleep study. It does not mention sleep study on the bill. It has my name, provider, account #, service date (correct date for the sleep study, and only date I have been there), total charges ($6392.18), payments ($3572.48), adjustment (-$1981.58), and balance owing ($883.12).

That is over $4000 and will buy you two nights in most sleep labs and four nights in some.

See http://clearhealthcosts.com/how-much-do ... tudy-cost/

If you had shopped around you might have found a lab cheaper than the cost of your deductible.