Head Injury, Emergency Room, How To Pay For ER Visit

Head Injury, Emergency Room, How To Pay For ER Visit Last night we spent four hours in the emergency room with our oldest son.  As my wife said on Facebook, he got into a fight with a tetherball pole, and he lost. The before picture is below. Its pretty gory.  The cut or whatever its called was bigger than his mouth. If you dont like gore, dont scroll down.  Or, if you are eating, come back later. Overall, we had a good experience at the emergency room. The doctor and nurses were awesome.  William was scared more than he was in pain and the anticipation of stitches and staples built up after three hours of waiting.  Poor kid I was reminded of my accident when I was new to my job search. I cut my hand and was going into shock. I was more worried about how to pay for an ER visit than anything else.  I had no income, no insurance, and was looking at paying at least hundreds of dollars just to get stitched up.  I went all DIY and tried superglue, which turns out to have been a great alternative. Now, we have a special type of insurance where we are covered 100%, up to $5k, for accidents like this. I dont know what it is called, and rarely hear about it.  But I love it.  This will be the second time we use it.  Its nice to know this entire accident will be paid for. Going back to what Ive blogged about before, did you know that you can get discounts on your hospital visits? Last night we learned we get a 25% discount for being self-pay.  That is awesome (although I think it speaks volumes about the problems with health insurance companies and processes). We got another 15% discount just because we paid in full last night. 40% discount.  Thats awesome. Please, please, please, ask your healthcare provider what discounts they provide if you are self pay and if you pay right away.  When our youngest son was born we got a 50% discount.  I find that amazing.  Ive heard of others who have gotten 60% off their bill.  This can apply to the hospital and all associated service providers even for medication. Some neat facts about head injuries: You know there is a lot of bleeding from a head injury, right?  What I didnt know was that is a great thing the body flushes out a lot of contaminates and lowers the chance of infection. I thought all the blood was bad, but it was actually a great thing. There are not as many nerve endings on the scalp as other places (like the toe, which is where he last had stitches, a few years ago, and remembered the pain!) so it was not a very painful procedure. The maintenance on this type of injury is really low.  We were surprised that he could resume normal activity so soon, including bathing/showering, etc.  I thought wed have to pamper the wound, but thats not the case for us. Staples and stitches come out in 10 days.  I didnt realize thats all they needed. Heres one of the pictures before staples (10) and stitches (4 under the skin, and a few on the top of the skin): Head Injury, Emergency Room, How To Pay For ER Visit Last night we spent four hours in the emergency room with our oldest son.  As my wife said on Facebook, he got into a fight with a tetherball pole, and he lost. The before picture is below. Its pretty gory.  The cut or whatever its called was bigger than his mouth. If you dont like gore, dont scroll down.  Or, if you are eating, come back later. Overall, we had a good experience at the emergency room. The doctor and nurses were awesome.  William was scared more than he was in pain and the anticipation of stitches and staples built up after three hours of waiting.  Poor kid I was reminded of my accident when I was new to my job search. I cut my hand and was going into shock. I was more worried about how to pay for an ER visit than anything else.  I had no income, no insurance, and was looking at paying at least hundreds of dollars just to get stitched up.  I went all DIY and tried superglue, which turns out to have been a great alternative. Now, we have a special type of insurance where we are covered 100%, up to $5k, for accidents like this. I dont know what it is called, and rarely hear about it.  But I love it.  This will be the second time we use it.  Its nice to know this entire accident will be paid for. Going back to what Ive blogged about before, did you know that you can get discounts on your hospital visits? Last night we learned we get a 25% discount for being self-pay.  That is awesome (although I think it speaks volumes about the problems with health insurance companies and processes). We got another 15% discount just because we paid in full last night. 40% discount.  Thats awesome. Please, please, please, ask your healthcare provider what discounts they provide if you are self pay and if you pay right away.  When our youngest son was born we got a 50% discount.  I find that amazing.  Ive heard of others who have gotten 60% off their bill.  This can apply to the hospital and all associated service providers even for medication. Some neat facts about head injuries: You know there is a lot of bleeding from a head injury, right?  What I didnt know was that is a great thing the body flushes out a lot of contaminates and lowers the chance of infection. I thought all the blood was bad, but it was actually a great thing. There are not as many nerve endings on the scalp as other places (like the toe, which is where he last had stitches, a few years ago, and remembered the pain!) so it was not a very painful procedure. The maintenance on this type of injury is really low.  We were surprised that he could resume normal activity so soon, including bathing/showering, etc.  I thought wed have to pamper the wound, but thats not the case for us. Staples and stitches come out in 10 days.  I didnt realize thats all they needed. Heres one of the pictures before staples (10) and stitches (4 under the skin, and a few on the top of the skin): Head Injury, Emergency Room, How To Pay For ER Visit Last night we spent four hours in the emergency room with our oldest son.  As my wife said on Facebook, he got into a fight with a tetherball pole, and he lost. The before picture is below. Its pretty gory.  The cut or whatever its called was bigger than his mouth. If you dont like gore, dont scroll down.  Or, if you are eating, come back later. Overall, we had a good experience at the emergency room. The doctor and nurses were awesome.  William was scared more than he was in pain and the anticipation of stitches and staples built up after three hours of waiting.  Poor kid I was reminded of my accident when I was new to my job search. I cut my hand and was going into shock. I was more worried about how to pay for an ER visit than anything else.  I had no income, no insurance, and was looking at paying at least hundreds of dollars just to get stitched up.  I went all DIY and tried superglue, which turns out to have been a great alternative. Now, we have a special type of insurance where we are covered 100%, up to $5k, for accidents like this. I dont know what it is called, and rarely hear about it.  But I love it.  This will be the second time we use it.  Its nice to know this entire accident will be paid for. Going back to what Ive blogged about before, did you know that you can get discounts on your hospital visits? Last night we learned we get a 25% discount for being self-pay.  That is awesome (although I think it speaks volumes about the problems with health insurance companies and processes). We got another 15% discount just because we paid in full last night. 40% discount.  Thats awesome. Please, please, please, ask your healthcare provider what discounts they provide if you are self pay and if you pay right away.  When our youngest son was born we got a 50% discount.  I find that amazing.  Ive heard of others who have gotten 60% off their bill.  This can apply to the hospital and all associated service providers even for medication. Some neat facts about head injuries: You know there is a lot of bleeding from a head injury, right?  What I didnt know was that is a great thing the body flushes out a lot of contaminates and lowers the chance of infection. I thought all the blood was bad, but it was actually a great thing. There are not as many nerve endings on the scalp as other places (like the toe, which is where he last had stitches, a few years ago, and remembered the pain!) so it was not a very painful procedure. The maintenance on this type of injury is really low.  We were surprised that he could resume normal activity so soon, including bathing/showering, etc.  I thought wed have to pamper the wound, but thats not the case for us. Staples and stitches come out in 10 days.  I didnt realize thats all they needed. Heres one of the pictures before staples (10) and stitches (4 under the skin, and a few on the top of the skin):