MRI and Grateful Pie

Very early yesterday morning, exhausted and uncaffeinated, I drove to the hospital for my MRI. They have you arrive forty five minutes before your appointment so that you can fill out several hundred forms and formally have an admissions officer rape your bank account.

I sat down with the mountain of paperwork and the lady asked me if I would be paying the full $537 now or would I need some sort of payment plan. I answered that I would like to see how we got to $537 first. Well, you would have thought that I had asked for her cup size or something equally inappropriate. She huffed and pointed her fake fingernail (painted blood red) at one of the documents in her possession and said they had spoken with my insurance company and they had already calculated the EXACT figure. Excellent! Now would she mind sharing that with me.

The answer was no.

Ummm...why not?

Privacy laws prevent us from disclosing that information.

I turned and looked behind me because I was convinced that Alan Fudd was going to round the corner at any minute and tell me to smile for the candid camera. In the past, I have not picked my battles effectively. In this case, lacking sleep and coffee, I just didn't see a happy outcome so I smiled politely and asked what a cervical spine MRI costs these days.

$3700.00

Wow.

A really good MRI machine costs upwards of a cool million but at $3700 a scan, any hospital could have that baby paid off after a few months of regular use. Now, I know that they don't collect near that amount on most of the tests they perform because insurance companies negotiate a much more reasonable cost but there are those that have to pay the big bucks.

The uninsured. The working poor.

Regardless on what side of the political fence you sit, doesn't it seem screwed up that the people who can least afford it are the ones who are charged the most?

Even though the $537 gave me pause, (I could have bought a tankful of gas instead), I was grateful to have a good, affordable insurance plan.