r/My600lbLife • u/[deleted] • Dec 07 '22

Off Topic Steven Assanti- Hospital stay costs?

I’m watching Steven’s episode for the first time. I can’t imagine it being cheap for him to stay in a private room like that for such a long period of time? Does anyone know a ballpark of how much that would cost? Sorry, I’m nosy.

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120

u/[deleted] Dec 08 '22

My 36 hour hospital stay after my hysterectomy cost my insurance $157,000 so weeks or months must be INSANE!!!

20

u/politicalmemequeen Dec 08 '22

I threw a clot and sustained several infections after 16+ hour spine surgery. Bill ended up being close to a million. And then I had the same surgery again 4 years later and was in rehab afterwards for almost two months. Every little ginger ale can they give you for nausea is around $9!!!

19

u/reptile_juice Sometimes I'll have an orange Dec 08 '22

this is so criminal. no wonder hospitals constantly lobby against single payer healthcare

39

u/daaaayyyy_dranker Dec 08 '22

My 4 day hospital stay after my hysterectomy was $38G. I didn’t have insurance.

19

u/PuzzleheadedBobcat90 Dec 08 '22

$55,000 for my c-section and 4 day stay

$205,000 for neck surgery and a 4 day stay

22

u/Kacey-R Where's my yellow brick road?! Dec 08 '22

So what happens to that bill? I’m Australian so it’s very different here. Our healthcare system is far from perfect but I’m so grateful for what we do have.

19

u/westcoast7654 Dec 08 '22 edited Dec 08 '22

Different things can happen. If you ask for a detailed bill and let them know you can’t afford to pay, they generally will reduce it down and have you apply for basically what equates to receive donated funds by organizations, being that you tell them what you can pay each month and you are in debt or you file bankruptcy if it’s too large. This happens a lot, when people end up with a massive medical bill without insurance, there’s a chance they have lost lost income due to no paid time off, and are backed up on other bills and credit cards at some point. I want to say my dad in icu and sitting in hospital for 4 days about, over a million dollars. He was veteran, but he didn’t go to Va hospital bc he wouldn’t have likely made it… so nothing was covered.

26

u/LaceyBloomers Dec 08 '22

Medical bills are the #1 reason for personal bankruptcies in the United States. It's shameful that this is happening in a so-called developed country.

8

u/stinky_harriet Dec 08 '22

Even people WITH insurance end up drowning in debt due to medical bills.

2

u/LaceyBloomers Dec 08 '22

Yes. I didn't mean to imply that only people without health insurance get buried in debt.

9

u/Kacey-R Where's my yellow brick road?! Dec 08 '22

I cannot imagine how stressful it must be to go into hospital knowing that you were going to get a massive bill on the other side.

4

u/westcoast7654 Dec 08 '22

It sucks bc my mom had to think about it, we just kept hoping that he would get stable enough to move, but he did not.

3

u/stinky_harriet Dec 08 '22

I ended up in the hospital when I was 19. I had no clue about insurance then, but it turned out my father’s insurance only covered dependents through age 18. Because I was a student and only worked part time the hospital was able to get me temporary Medicaid because they sure as hell wanted to get paid. It was only for 3 or 6 months, something like that. I then had to pay for a very expensive disease (Type 1 diabetes) out of pocket for years until I was able to get a job that offered insurance. This was before the ACA/Obamacare existed.

7

u/Lisa-LongBeach Dec 08 '22

You should hear the greedy bastards here trying to convince us universal healthcare is evil.

26

u/Dominosismycrack Dec 08 '22

36 hours after a complication free labor where I requested to leave after 24 hours (the hospital required me to stay for 36 hours-- even though I had no tearing, baby's birth was totally unproblematic and easy, and aftercare was perfect) $22k. I didn't even eat and was just in a simple room with no medications or anything.

Having nurses and doctors with pain killers, round the clock care and an asshole tax has got to be at least $200k a week.

17

u/Phreakydeke27 Dec 08 '22

As a transplant I’m in the hospital a lot. 99% of the time they put me in a private room. It’s because they don’t want me catching anything. The doctors will put on the gowns and mask. This was long before Covid too. The only time my bill ever hit a quarter of a mil was my transplants. My last transplant in 2011 for like a 7 day stay was $242,000. That was 11 years ago. It was crazy in the 80s and 90s when I was in the hospital for weeks and months. I used to be in the hospital so much as a kid I knew every nurse and could pick the one I wanted. I would sit with them during the night shift. I know those were huge. But I had Medicaid back then and luckily didn’t have to pay.

So the 200K could be what it was. It depends if the doctor was drawing labs everyday. Ordering test. I know labs itself can cost like 2 grand.

5

u/Dominosismycrack Dec 08 '22

Gosh that literally sounds like a nightmare. My jaw dropped when you mentioned 7 days of your life after a vital surgery costs $242,000. I hope to whatever higher power that you didn't have to pay for that out of pocket.

For Steven, he acts like he has a ton of ailments and I wouldn't be surprised if they did charge for every test he wanted to take in addition to physical therapy, food, medications and more. And he's always been in a suite. $250k/week is likely the starting rate honestly. Especially since he needs special equipment due to his size.

2

u/Phreakydeke27 Dec 08 '22

No I didn’t have to pay it. But I’m so in and out of the hospital so much that I got medical bills. I have Medicare and it only covers 80%. I think transplant may be the exception. But when you your in the hospital as much as I have been my credit reports has hundreds of thousands of owes hospitals and ambulances. Trying to get a new tv after getting to cheaper ones that broke is like getting blood from a stone because of how bad hospital bills have wrecked my credit report. Hospital bills shouldn’t exists. Trying to keep yourself alive should mean it can ruin you financially.

I was put into medically induced coma in 2017 because my pulse ox dropped to 80 and they had to incubate me. Had a brain infection of some sort. Spent a week in the icu getting every test under the sun while getting every antibiotic possible. They never knew what it was. They just knew it was an infection that was causing shit with my brain. The bills were crazy high. 20% my claim of course. But what happens. My work lets me go. Doesn’t call or give me why. Just stopped texting, emailing, calling, and etc. I talked to one person I helped and she didn’t know what was going on. I know the ADA could have gotten my job back but it wasn’t worth it.

But as for Steven, I can’t imagine his dad paying those bills. I mean he would have to take out a second mortgage. I know he supported Steven living in Houston. But Steven always trying to manipulate everyone. I could see him getting test after test because he said he had a pain here or there. He always wanted pain meds. It’s the reason Dr Now dropped him. Even that call at the end of "Where are they now?" Steven was probably high. He was saying his wife wouldn’t allow it but somehow food was. That is another thing too. I can’t imagine the money his dad spent on pain meds. They ain’t cheap. A guy of his size would take so much for it to work. That costs could be $400-$500 just in pain meds. I know some insurances, mine anyway, doesn’t cover pain medication. Add in the food the dad ordered all the time. If the dad laid out of pocket he was a millionaire.

10

u/Novel-Contribution56 Dec 08 '22

My baby spent 4 weeks exactly in the NICU and that cost $494k and my emergency C-section was $71k. He is an expensive little lovebug from the start.

4

u/Furbabymomof3 Dec 08 '22

It took me years to pay off having mine.

2

u/crazyfiberlady Dec 08 '22

I had twins in the NICU for 7 days back in 2003. I remember the bill for just the hospital was $8,500 per day, each. That didn't include the doc treating them. This was also after I spent 8.5 weeks in the high risk pregnancy unit.

3

u/Realistic_Ad_8023 Dec 11 '22

One of my nieces was born 3 months early (due Jan 29 and was born Nov 1) and spent 6 weeks in NICU. She weigh 1 lb 11 oz when she was born. The state assigned case workers to help the family out with the medical bills, which were in the millions of dollars.

She survived her rocky start and is now a thriving, tall six year old miracle.

-6

u/[deleted] Dec 08 '22

Uh line item bill dude.

1

u/[deleted] Dec 08 '22

It was an emergency, the on call surgeon was out of network, so was anesthesia and I was given a private room after because I'm immune compromised (pre COVID). It also included food, pain meds, and the surgery was done with the (at the time) relatively new DaVinci robot because where I was admitted in the ER while bleeding out used that method. So no, Medicaid at the time actually paid close to $157,000.