Photo: Callie Richmond/KHN
After a Texas teacherquestioned his $108,951 hospital billfor a life-threatening heart attack in an NPR story,his bill has since been reducedto $332.29.
Drew Calver, 44, had suffered a widowmaker heart attack at his home in Austin, Texas in April 2017. A neighbor called an ambulance, which rushed the high school history teacher to the nearest hospital, St. David’s Medical Center.
“I thought I was dying,” Calver,an ardent swimmerwho recently completed an Ironman triathlon, told NPR andKaiser Health Newsfor their Bill of the Month series, which breaks downhealth care costs in the U.S.
Doctors at St. David’s stabilized Calver and put stents in his heart the next day, but Calver’s biggest concern was the cost of treatment, as St. David’s is out-of-network on the health insurance he gets from the Austin Independent School District. The hospital reassured Calver that they would take his insurance.
But after his health insurance provider, Aetna, paid the hospital $55,840, they sent him another bill for an additional $108,951, in a practice known as “balance billing” — when a hospital charges the patient the remaining balance between what the insurance provider pays and the amount the hospital chooses to charge.
Callie Richmond/KHN
“They’re going to give me another heart attack stressing over this bill,” Calver said in the article from Monday. “I can’t pay this bill on my teacher salary, and I don’t want this to go to a debt collector.”
His case, where he was taken to an out-of-network hospital, “illustrates the dangers that even insured people face,”Carol Lucas, an attorney in Los Angeles with experience in health care payment disputes, told NPR. “The unfairness is especially acute when there is an emergency and the patient, who might ordinarily be completely compliant, has no say about the facility he winds up in.”
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Calver said he’s relieved to no longer have an excessive medical bill — which was nearly double his yearly salary — weighing on him and his family, but he’s concerned that there areso many Americans facing the same issue.
“It feels great that this is over for me and my family, but this isn’t just about my bill,” Calver said. “I don’t feel any consumer should have to go through this.”
PEOPLE has contacted St. David’s for comment.
source: people.com
