Wednesday, January 12, 2011

Did You Know an Ambulance Ride Costs More than an ER Visit?

Did you know an ambulance ride costs more than an ER visit?

I didn't until the bills came. The ambulance ride is almost three times as much as the emergency room visit. Of course, the ambulance charges for mileage ($19/mile), oxygen, back board, stabilizing collar...I am almost surprised they didn't charge for me to ride with them! At least the hospital was willing to make some payment options, even though their bill was much cheaper!

2 comments:

Montucky said...

I'm not too happy with what the ambulance people charge either. I'm quite familiar with them locally and I can't understand how they justify those high charges! Locally the ambulances are operated under the control of the local hospital which also charges extremely high for its services.

silken said...

we were actually surprised at the hospital bill, much less than we thought and it even included the dr and radiology. and they were willing to work with us on payment and offered a 10% discount and gave us paperwork to fill out for a charity donation. the hospital where we went is "non-profit" so maybe that is why they were willing to work w/ us so much...

I thought it was weird that the charge for the back board was $29 and the charge for the cervical collar $100. I'm not sure what the difference would be there, but that's a big difference!

anyway....we did what we had to do then and will do what we have to do now....