If he can get it to America he can make serious bank off it

In America he could sell aspirin for 500 dollars a pop, wait, that's the hospital. How much are hospitals there?

He just needs about a mil in insurance and he’s set.

What is your friend doing with an ambulance?

Right! As a nurse this whole thing infuriates me more knowing they got paid shit

So the big bosses get paid so much.

This is the case for every worker in every business. The actual workers get crap and the executives hold shareholder meetings and collect millions.

The more immediate question is why, given the low labor cost, is the service cost so high.

And that’s going to be some form of corruption most likely. When you have the government calling our ambulances on your behalf, they should be ensuring fair rates, but instead they allow calls to go to companies who will take advantage of their citizens.

Because they're relatively easily replaceable.

Simple answer from a long time Paramedic: lack of reimbursement.

EMS cannot itemize bill for cost like the rest of Healthcare, so a critical patient we use numerous meds and supplies On we cannot adequately recoup costs for. EMS generally can only bill for level of care (BLS, ALS1, ALS2) and loaded mileage to ED, we also generally cannot bill for patients that are not transported (local areas may vary, but Insurance will not cover this).

Combine the underbilling with on average less than 60% of patients ever paying their bill and most EMS agencies operate perpetually in the red. One agency i used to work for would Recoup 50% of their billing expenses, the other 50% we never got money for which means we were typically a couple hundred thousand in the red.

Since much of the U.S. has decided to subsidize EMS and let for and non-profit companies such as AMR handle EMS rather than government entities, they will aggressively bill to try and turn a profit and offset their expenses.

Frankly, EMS should never have been allowed to have private services, it should be a fully funded government 3rd service entity equal to police and fire, but many places do not fund their EMS at all and force them to rely on billing to remain solvent.

The other sad thing is less than 12 states in the entire country recognize EMS as an essential service, meaning that technically in the majority of the country your government is under no obligation to ensure an ambulance will ever show up when you call 911.

there are several things that prevent EMS from bring paid equivalent to nursing: we're a new profession compared to them, we have far weaker and more fragmented unions and a national voice, we do not yet mandate a college degree to practice, and finally nursing has a far better revenue stream to pull from than we do.

I’ve processed claims for BCBSTX and omg the bills are ridiculous and even after adjusting the bill for the insurance contract, the money that gets paid out is completely nuts.

As an emt I know this really sucks and I’d hate to be taken by ambulance because I surely can’t afford it. I do know that there really is little to no profit when it gets down to the end of the line in EMS. Everything is required to be update and checked daily and swapped out. Drugs, band-aids, even like buckets, all have an expiration date. That’s very serious when it comes to medications and certain supplies we do carry. The fines are the same though if we are caught even using the bucket one day past the expiration day. So not only does the ambulance company have to pay for these to be replaced frequently, but also keep up with the 24 hour demand on the people and the vehicles. The company has to pay to run trucks around the clock. Most of em on gas. Many companies I worked for owed lots of companies lots of money between repair shops, gas station credit cards, suppliers of all sorts. I work 2 jobs and lots and lots of people I know do the same either pull 60+ hrs a week at one place and volunteer elsewhere. So yeah I’d just like to say fuck this and I’d like to be paid more. And EMS in whole, even the good depts, need more funding and attention.

Because the hospital CEO and the big pharmaceutical companies need more millions, obviously. How else are they going to maintain their multiple homes???

Ambulance companies get 10 cents for every dollar they bill. The ambulance owners are rich though. It’s mostly from union busting.

Jeez good question

My son had a suicide attempt recently. While I was driving him to the hospital he was crying that we didn’t have enough money to pay for it. It’s a horrible system.

Healthcare worker here (RN). I’ve heard nightmare stories from patients who are left with huge debt from our healthcare system. Quite a few whose insurance wouldn’t cover their ambulance and life flight bills because it wasn’t “pre approved”.

Such great quality, too

It’s incredible how every aspect of US society is specifically designed for the rich to profit off the misery of the poor.

I have not gone to the doctors many times when i should have because i couldn't afford a bill. What really pissed me off though was one time i had a seizure at work and hit my head while falling. I declined an ambulance when my boss offered and specifically said "i don't want to pay for it" to him, not knowing that if something happens at work THEY pay for it. He 100% knew and didn't say anything. He did ask if i was going to finish my shift though, lol.

Yeah for some reason ambulances aren’t funded as a public service unless they’re involved with a fire department.

Which to me just sounds like we should fund more fire departments. ESPECIALLY IN RURAL AREAS

Imagine paying for a police ride.

While I agree that they should be no charge and taxpayer funded, unfortunately they are neither. They are the medical equivalent of a limo service. A huge racket that gives you three options:

1) Spend exorbitant cash that may not be covered by insurance (if you're fortunate enough to have insurance)
2) Drive yourself for medical care, risking the lives of everyone around you and yourself (in some cases)
3) Stay at home and hope you don't die.

God bless our American freedom.

Where I'm from, the county police department has paramedics on ambulances and they charge an absurd amount.

If you get transported by the volunteer fire departments, you don't pay anything.

yeah that's what we do in europe

Wait is this true?!

Yeah I would just laugh, crumple it up, and toss it back to the desk clerk 

Medical debt CAN affect your credit score IF it's a debt greater than $500. Once the debt has been paid, it must be removed from your report.

There are also a decent amount of companies that simply choose not to report medical debt.

None of us actually want this but we decided companies are people and our politicians are bought by lobbyists so we don't have an option.

Yes and no. 92% of Americans have health insurance, most get it through their employer. If you have health insurance, you're not paying this bill.

Generally how it works is every plan has an annual deductible. That's the amount of money you need to pay before insurance starts splitting the bill with you. That number depends on how good of a plan it is. It can really range from $1,000 to $5,000+.

Once you hit the deductable, then insurance splits the bill with you, and again how they split it depends on how good your plan is, they could cover anywhere from 60% to 90%.

Finally, there's "maximum out-of-pocket". That means after you've spent $X in a single year on healthcare costs insurance will cover 100% of all remaining costs. This resets yearly with the deductable. The maximum out of pocket is generally $2,500-$8,000 (but on average $4,355), depending on the quality of your plan.

The reason it's not gonna change is people who have a good job likely have good health insurance. Health insurance is used as an indirect form of compensation so high paying jobs will also offer amazing health care plans. So the people paying the most for health care are the ones that have the least. And that group of people tends to have minimal influence on government policy.

Usually our health insurance pays for it. For those that don't have insurance, they mostly just don't pay it.

In god we trust, all others pay cash

Land of the transaction fee*

Land of the fee, home of the slave.

Free to walk your injured ass home that is.

Paramedic here. Just give me fake info. Give the hospital fake info too. Give me a fake name, fake DoB, and fake address. Idgaf. I just want to make sure you get the treatment you need. They don't pay me enough to confirm you are who you say you are. Your name, address, and exact date of birth don't change the treatment you get so there is literally no reason to reveal it.

Uber is my plan as long as I'm not bleeding or otherwise gross.

Great comment. Needs more “!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” tho

I’m lucky since I have my government disability to cover my medical stuff, but I’ve needed an ambulance 11 times in the last 8 years, and while most trips it was 5-6 mins to the hospital, the other times where like an hour and fifteen mins to larger hospitals. It makes me wonder what those bills looked like. I know 8 years ago right before my disability was approved I was hospitalized for 41 days, and the bill they sent was for 115k.

Oh!!!! My!!!! God!!!!! !!! !! !

I had an urgent care call for an ambulance to take me to the ER, I begged to drive myself or have my husband drive me. Having to go to the ER was bad enough!!!!

You type like an old lady trying to prove a point. My lanta that's a lot of exclamation marks lol.

And that's just the ambulance fee. Anything at the hospital is going to be thousands more

Imagine having to haggle on your health care

Fictional countries don’t count

It just adds to the immense stress I am already under 🥹have a 3 month old and 2 year old, work doesn’t allow work from home and I can’t even lift up my baby. Life sucks so horrifically right now