cost to break an arm? health insurance

[Nevada Sixx]

Hi,
anyone ever broke their arm riding? how much was your doctor bill? Did you have to stay all nite at the hospital? I need to know cause im gonna get some new health coverage soon and I want to make sure i pick the right one (deductable/benefits)...outpatiant service on one only pays 2500.. so that means if i break my arm and it's 5000 i wont get much at all... :(
thanks.
sean

 

[Casper250]

It really depends on the break. I broke my wrist a while back and I don't remeber the exact cost but i just got a simple cast put on. It could have been alot more if they needed to do surgery and put in some screws. Also, if you need physicle rehabilitation after it's healed, the price can go up.

 

[D Lafleur]

Had a pretty nasty break last spring just above the wrist. Broke both bones in more than one place. I ended up having surgery and physical therapy. 4 screws 7 pins and 56 grand later I am almost as good as new. The cost of operating rooms and such is unbelievable. I guess those with insurance also pay for those without.

Not bad eight years worth of new bikes in money for not even falling off the bike. :bang:

 

[Treejumper]

No arm but did do the leg/ankle. I dont know the total amount but was easily over $5000 and i didnt have surgery. PT was $110 each visit 3 times a week for 4 weeks. Ortho boot was $700. Oklahoma ER visit and supplies was $1000 something. It all adds up. Then if you have to think of missing work depending on your type of job. I had short term disablility so that helped. I was out 10 weeks and they paid 7 of those full pay. The other 3 were at 60% of my pay.

 

[srellis]

My son broke his arm in Nov. Surgery with plates, one night stay. Insurance covered 100% since this was an accident. I didn't have to even pay any deductable! Blue Cross Blue Shield. The total bill was around $15,000.00. He'll have to go back in two years to get them removed. I hope insurance covers that also.
SusanE

 

[Chili]

No arms to compare for you but I can tell you a broken femur, 5 nights in the hospital with a plate, 8 screws and some wire will run you 35K in Stillwater OK.

 

[Kokanee]

No arms to compare for you but I can tell you a broken femur, 5 nights in the hospital with a plate, 8 screws and some wire will run you 35K in Stillwater OK.

Too bad it didn't happen at home in Canada Chili, it would have been free.Medical costs in the US are ridiculous I always max my insurance before I go riding down there!

 

[Chili]

Too bad it didn't happen at home in Canada Chili, it would have been free.Medical costs in the US are ridiculous I always max my insurance before I go riding down there!

We were insured, to be honest given the care he got down there I'm glad it didn't happen at home.

 

[rickyd]

A few years ago the kid broke his arm, he had some blood in his mouth from the wreck.. The paramedics requested a medi-vac.. They had thought there was some internal bleeding.. The flight, the night in the hospital , x-rays, cast etc cost over 20k.. A few months later he broke his collarbone, that was around $7500, then about a year later he broke his other collarbone.. Make sure you gt good coverage..
Rick

 

[D Lafleur]

I knew I got good care, but I missed the caviar and champagne. I know the 56K was the full price, with 4 weeks of PT, but I almost feel ripped off. I had an emergency room visit, two days later outpatient surgury 5 follow ups which included 2 seperate procedures to remove hardware and no medical transportation. :bang:

 

[slideways11]

I broke my leg in Mexico a few years ago it was $20 for the xrays and $150 for the cast.

 

[jaction125]

Busted an ankle ten years ago. Chipped the bone, had a surgery, 1 night in the hospital. Friggen anastesia was $900. Total came out to just a shade under $13,000

 

[nephron]

lol slideways, that's hilarious. What you don't know is the bone was set wrong, and you got TB just walking in there. Remember that diarrhea? That was cholera. ;)

Interesting thing down there. If you have money, you get care. If you don't, they'll kick your ass out on the road to die. I've seen it. A lot of the illegal aliens have renal failure, and they'll escape to the US, thinking they can get dialysis here. Unfortunately for them, dialysis is funded by Medicare (which uses SSN's) and run by private companies like Gambro and DaVita...who have stockholders...who don't like it when the $80,000/yr cost isn't covered. So we have to tell them to go back to Mexico, get some money together, or die.

I've sent dialysis patients down there on vacation--'Yeah, I know a friend down there that's a doctor that can dialyze me'...they come back sicker than s...t. It usually takes 1-2 months to get their anemia corrected because they're using sham (or none) epogen (hormone to keep anemia chronic kidney failure at bay).

Some of the vets in San Diego live down there, and when they get sick, they're lucky to make it back to the San Diego VA alive.

On the other hand, our healthcare system sucks...no doubt about it. Costs are driven up by 2 things: 1) completely indigent patients that end up in the ICU for a few months, leaving with a 1 or 2 million dollar bill (hospital doesn't even bother, obviously) and 2) the cost of technology...most of these new CT's and MR's are in the tens of millions of dollars each. How does a hospital recoup that?

Ahhhh, but what's a life worth?....

 

[Oldschooldeathwish]

like chili and kokanee said health care is free here to a point. Just look at your paycheck the 30% minimum they take off you goes somewhere. Ive never been to a hospital in the states but my brother had to go to one for an asthma attack and he was taken care of quickly and given his new puffers on the spot (thank god for medical insurance). Ive had some pretty crappy experiances with the ER's up here, A lot of times you wait for more than 6 hours while the doctors take care of people with the sniffles while my brother sits there with his ankle bone almost sticking through his skin (skateboard injury). after 8 hours you are told that because he has lines on his bones because he is growing and they cant tell if it is broken and we are sent home. Now I am not an MD at all but if someones ankle is twice the size of normal there is something wrong with it. im gonna stop before i get on a huge rant here but in most cases you get what you pay for

 

[MXGirl230]

At work we are offered 4 dif. kinds of insurance. We have the 1)Why bother 2)Not much better 3) Pretty good, but sucks b/c it's Blue Crap Network 4) Really good. I pay for #4. It costs me $75 a paycheck, but it's worth it. I also have Aflac which will pick up the rest of the bill. My cousin got $3400 for a few nights in the hosptial after he snapped his tib/fib last spring.

Go for the better insurance. A friend of mine has the "why bother" ins. costs him like $10 a paycheck. He almost broke his neck over the summer. He is still trying to pay off the bill. It didn't cover the X-Rays or anything. He still owes like $10,000.

Two years ago I suffered a pretty bad concussion, a trip to the ER, X-Rays, CT Scans, etc only costed me $50. Plus I had to have physical therapy for over a month and that was all covered. You're usually better off paying for the better ins. especially being involved in a sport like this.

 

[Nevada Sixx]

well, i got a new policy, i dropped my blue cross and got golden rule.. blue cross with $1000 (80/20 copay) deduct was gonna be $240 a month.. the golden rule is $121 a month with 2500 deductable (80/20), plus i get 500 upfront for accidents,, and i use their network doc's here. and yes it covers doc visits and rx after deductable. Humm,, a $120 bux a month savings on insurance...isnt that about the payment on a new bike!!!

 

[yz250-effer]

I am not sure about arms as well, but....

2 broken legs ( 1 femur, 1 patella), and a severed patellar/acl, 4 surgerys ( 2 on each knee) plus the therapy/air/ambulance ran up to about 82G. Fortunately I had good insurance at the time, but would not recommend riding without insurance since you never know. It is expensive sometimes, but the alternative is more so. :eek: