A woman said she was billed for a trip to the emergency room, even though she didn't receive any treatment.
Taylor Davis said she went to the Emory Decatur Hospital ER in July for a head injury.
She sat in the waiting room for hours, but with no end in sight, she decided to leave.
"I sat there for seven hours. There's no way I should be sitting in an emergency room.. an emergency room for seven hours," she said.
A couple of weeks later, a surprise came in her mailbox.
It was a bill from the hospital for nearly $700.
"I didn't get my vitals taken, nobody called my name. I wasn't seen at all," Davis said.
Davis said she was convinced it was a mistake.
"So I called them and she said it's hospital protocol even if you're just walking in and you're not seen. When you type in your social, that's it. You're going to get charged regardless," she said.
She said she was told it was an emergency room visit fee or a facility fee as it is called in some cases.
It's often added to a person's total hospital bill, so it might not be as noticeable as it is in this case.
An email sent to Davis by an Emory Healthcare patient financial services employee states "You get charged before you are seen. Not for being seen."
Davis said unfortunately, she'll think twice before stepping foot in an ER., now that she knows what she can potentially be charged with,
"I'm very reluctant to go to the hospital now. That's kind of like the last resort now. Seeing that they're able to bill you for random things, it doesn't make me want to go. So that's not good," Davis said.
Emory Healthcare sent the following statement:
"Emory Healthcare takes all patient concerns seriously and appreciates this has been brought to our attention. Our teams are currently looking into this matter and will follow up directly with the individual."
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Kamots66 on November 1st, 2021 at 14:06 UTC »
Translation:
Someone found out about our predatory billing practices and it's making us look bad, so we're going to fix it, for this one person.
JKnott1 on November 1st, 2021 at 13:31 UTC »
They didn't even triage her. They're calling the charge a "facility fee." Actually, it's called healthcare fraud. Best thing she could have done was go to the media. This will light some fires under the local politician's behinds.
M116rs on November 1st, 2021 at 13:30 UTC »
Same thing happened to my wife this summer. We go to the hospital because she feels terrible and her blood pressure is really high. They take her vitals and we go wait in the waiting room. After 8 hours of not being called back we leave because she's feeling better. $750 bill arrives a week later.
Kennestone Hospital, Marietta GA. Part of the Wellstar family.
Edit: Geez, this blew up way more than I was expecting. We're still disputing it with insurance and the hospital.
I see a few people saying we shouldn't have gone and just gone to urgent care. We don't really have a lot of 24 hour urgent cares in our area and this was a Sunday evening. She has a slew of other health problems and her BP was around 157/97 if I remember correctly, so with that combined it seemed like a good idea to got to the ER.
I need to point out that im not upset they billed us for something because we did use a little bit of resources but $750 is WAY more than what's reasonable for vitals.