He was seriously ill from the Covid, he recovered, but almost “died” when he saw the bill for hospital costs | the Chronicle

A man who has passed four months in an American hospital for Covid posted a video on the social network TIC Tac in which he shows the huge healthcare costs of his hospitalization and has gone viral.

In the clip, shared by user @letstalkaboutbusiness, you can see a detailed list with the prices with the different medical procedures received, ranging from the cheapest, physiotherapy (around $ 10), even the most expensive: $ 550,458 for respiratory therapy.

This is not the only treatment that costs a fortune, as the intensive therapy is also consigned for $ 324,349while lab tests amounted to $ 350,253 and non-sterile medical surgery supplies, which cost over $ 397,000

In all, the figure is $ 2.8 million and in the video, which has already exceeded 10.2 million views, he was accompanied by the caption “Woooh”.

“Wait, are people paying for basic care? “ a user asked in the comments. “The United States is not a country, it is a businessAnother person commented, while another said: “Tell me you live in the United States without telling me that you live in the United States”.

However, the document states that It is not an invoice, because it is only an explanatory detail for the patients and the invoice has been sent to the insurer. Well, in the United States, most expenses are covered by insurers because there is no universal health coverage.

This means that health insurance does not cover all types of procedures, which in some cases can lead to medical debt. And in this case It was not clear whether the insurer covered the total.

TikTok’s viral video

Covid medical costs in the United States

In case of Michel Flor, a 70-year-old man from Seattle, has become a clear example of how health works in the United States.

Flower was diagnosed with coronavirus on March 4, 2020 and remained hospitalized for 62 days, nearly half of them connected to an automatic ventilator.

May 5, when He was released, left to applause, still in a wheelchair and wearing a Superman shirt. Thus, at the beginning of June, the invoice for the medical care received arrived at his home.

The invoice was a 181-page document detailing nearly 3,000 items with their corresponding amounts. The total sum made, exactly, $ 1,122,501.04.

Flor was lucky that his insurance was covered by public Medicare funds, so you didn’t have to deal with the bulky bill. However, the people included in this program are not in the majority.

According to the Johns Hopkins University study, 60% of policyholders in the United States have insurance from an agreement between their company and a private medical company. These insurances are not required by law to withdraw deductibles or quotas. It depends on the will of the company in each case. And if he decides not to cover it, the patient must take over the medical debt.

“Flor was lucky that his insurance was covered by public Medicare funds, but if you work for a company of a certain size and they are the one that provides you with health insurance, your co-pay and the deductible expenses will depend on your employer., insured Matthew Eisenberg, one of the authors of the study