This is the first time he ever got to see the bill most likely. I didn't appreciate it until I had a similar situation. You have to become a patient to understand why patients go broke. You can know it intellectually, academically, from reading it, but you don't really understand it until you live through it and see it with your own eyes.
It just so happens I had a similar incident. Chronic diarrhea lead to acute dehydration and brown urine with tinged blood. Acute kidney injury. So off I went to the ER to get worked up. I was severely dehydrated, so I ended up getting a couple of bags of saline IV and it fixed me right up. I was examined by a 4th year medical student on ER rotation (fine, he was more than capable, personable, and very thorough). I was overseen by a 2nd year resident. Again, fine. He was more than capable, but not as personable as the med student. They worked me up properly, made the correct diagnosis, and gave me the right treatment. I was in the bed for ~3 hours start to finish. My bill (10 years ago or so) was $5K and change. Insurance covered most of it. I worked for the hospital, so I expected them to cover it all, but lol, no.
Regardless, for 3 hours of ER time, two cheap blood tests, an IV set and 2 bags of saline, I got a bill for over $5K. I never saw the ER physician. That service doesn't cost $5K, even if you factor in egregious per minute operating costs to keep an ER open (staffing, facilities, that kind of overhead). Not even close. I should have paid no more than 10% of that.
So, why did I pay more? Because paying customers subsidize the non-payers and the underpayers. Every time Medicare pays 81 cents on the dollar that's billed, every time Medicaid pays 68 cents on the dollar, every "free" visit for a homeless person or illegal alien for their snot-nosed kid with a cold, that cost gets added up and distributed to the bills of people with "good" insurance who can pay. Honest people go bankrupt trying to pay their medical bills while the government (politicians) makes promises to people that the taxpayer has to keep. And when the taxpayer can't keep them because we're a broke AF debtor nation, the honest, paying customers get to pick up the slack.
Now, to be clear, I was at a non-profit hospital. The issue of gov't subsidizing a "for profit" system is even more morally outrageous. They're typically the worst offenders. They're not serving "the underserved" (which is a bullshit distinction, but it does mean they must take the charity cases and can't legally shunt them away) like the non-profits are. They charge the gov't which underpays and then they pass on their profit margin "cost" to the payers. This is a huge driver of your insurance premiums going skyhigh after HusseinCare, btw.
TLDR: the good doctor is absolutely right.
This is the first time he ever got to see the bill most likely. I didn't appreciate it until I had a similar situation. You have to become a patient to understand why patients go broke. You can know it intellectually, academically, from reading it, but you don't really understand it until you live through it and see it with your own eyes.
It just so happens I had a similar incident. Chronic diarrhea lead to acute dehydration and brown urine with tinged blood. Acute kidney injury. So off I went to the ER to get worked up. I was severely dehydrated, so I ended up getting a couple of bags of saline IV and it fixed me right up. I was examined by a 4th year medical student on ER rotation (fine, he was more than capable, personable, and very thorough). I was overseen by a 2nd year resident. Again, fine. He was more than capable, but not as personable as the med student. They worked me up properly, made the correct diagnosis, and gave me the right treatment. I was in the bed for ~3 hours start to finish. My bill (10 years ago or so) was $5K and change. Insurance covered most of it. I worked for the hospital, so I expected them to cover it all, but lol, no.
Regardless, for 3 hours of ER time, two cheap blood tests, an IV set and 2 bags of saline, I got a bill for over $5K. I never saw the ER physician. That service doesn't cost $5K, even if you factor in egregious per minute operating costs to keep an ER open (staffing, facilities, that kind of overhead). Not even close. I should have paid no more than 10% of that.
So, why did I pay more? Because paying customers subsidize the non-payers and the underpayers. Every time Medicare pays 81 cents on the dollar that's billed, every time Medicaid pays 68 cents on the dollar, every "free" visit for a homeless person or illegal alien for their snot-nosed kid with a cold, that cost gets added up and distributed to the bills of people with "good" insurance who can pay. Honest people go bankrupt trying to pay their medical bills while the government (politicians) makes promises to people that the taxpayer has to keep. And when the taxpayer can't keep them because we're a broke AF debtor nation, the honest, paying customers get to pick up the slack.
Now, to be clear, I was at a non-profit hospital. The issue of gov't subsidizing a "for profit" system is even more morally outrageous. They're typically the worst offenders. They're not serving "the underserved" (which is a bullshit distinction, but it does mean they must take the charity cases and can't legally shunt them away) like the non-profits are. They charge the gov't which underpays and then they pass on their profit margin "cost" to the payers. This is a huge driver of your insurance premiums going skyhigh after HusseinCare, btw.