“He just couldn't hold anything down. I wanted to take him to the hospital just to make sure that he was ok and ready for our wedding,” explains the bride. You see, the bachelor party was a bit too much and the couple headed to the ER. With two bags of saline, the groom was fine.
But then the bill arrived. More than $12,000, including a $7,600 "facility fee", and charges for tests the groom says he didn't even know were ordered.
“What they told me was that by signing the consent form when I checked in, that authorized them to run any and all tests without basically running it by me first—anything they deemed necessary.”
Between 2009 and 2016, ER charges nearly doubled. The Health Care Cost Institute says they're rising at four times the rate of overall health care spending.
So, how do you know if you need to go to the ER or Urgent Care/Family Doctor?
Go the ER if you experience difficulty breathing, chest pain, sudden numbness or weakness, a broken bone sticking through the skin, an animal bite or a major cut on your face.
Use urgent care or your family doctor for colds, coughs, fever, minor cuts, rashes, earaches or the flu.