Musings from Joel

Everyone has an opinion on this and I’m no exception. The health care debate will continue for years no doubt. But I feel compelled to mention my recent experience with the system. I have chronic lower back pain. I have had it for 10 years and steadfastly refused to go see a doctor about it believing there was nothing they could do other than medicate me. I have used yoga to control the pain and maintain a level of flexibility that most men approaching 40 don’t have. But my most recent bout of back pain made me decide that rather than wait the month or two it takes for the episode to pass I would try a doctor. So I went to a sports medicine Doctor who looked my back, put a TENS unit on it for 30 minutes and referred me to another Doctor. I then went to a Spine Doctor who decided to give me 4 cortisone shots in my lower spine on the right side. Now this is an involved procedure requiring a surgery center, an Anesthesiologist, and my Doctor to do the injection through x ray vision. The whole procedure took all of 20 minutes and I was out of the center in an hour. Total bill, over $3000. Now I do not have insurance, I am self employed and have always considered it too expensive. Everyone keeps telling me I should get some to at least cover catastrophic, but I haven’t seen a need to do it. I am healthy as an ox and never get sick, even colds tend to bounce off me. Of course the really aggravating thing is that if I had had insurance it would not have covered any of this. But, spending $3000 for a 20 minute procedure that, here’s the kicker, didn’t work, is absolutely insane. I would have had more fun taking a cruise and gambling the entire time than staring at my credit card bill for this worthless exercise. I can’t comprehend how my doctor justifies a $1500 bill for 20 minutes. I know 4 shots of cortisone don’t cost more than a couple of hundred dollars. I know he went to school an extra few years and did an internship and residency somewhere for a few years but is that really worth $3000 an hour? No fucking way, it’s highway robbery. The Anesthesiologist charged me $450 and all he did was inject an iv and watch the monitor. The surgery center charged me $1050 to sit in their bed, talk to a few nurses and use their space for an hour. The system is truly and completely shot and needs to be overhauled top to bottom. If my doctor billed everyone they way he billed me then he must clear $6M a year. Even if he only bills everyone 4 hours a day like I was billed it would net him over $3M.