I'm thinking I might have lucked out with my insurance. I paid a total of $360 for my surgeries (February and May of this year). And that $360 was just because I requested a private room instead of semi-private. When I asked Mayo for an estimate, they told me $60-70k. I then called my insurance before the surgery and they told me the most I'd pay is 20% of the first 20k. Any idea what happened?

Maybe I hit a lifetime maximum the year before? I had $10,000 out of pocket expense last year and I think they quit charging me for Remicade infusions near the end of the year.

I'm definitely not asking questions to my insurance company. If its a mistake, I don't want to uncover it.

Just curious, what did you pay for your surgeries?

With advantages and a little discount thanks to my surgeon each surgery cost me around $25-30,000.00 depending on the length of the stay (7 day average).
Unfortunately I am still at war with my insurance to pay for the last 4....
Sharon

Since I was in the hosptial for at least a week with both of my surgeries, my bills were pretty high (private rooms cost a fortune). I think both of my sugeries ended up being about $150,000 of bills. However, I only paid about $6K out of pocket after adjustments and stuff. I think that was my individual out of pocket max for the year. So I've been enjoying free meds and free doctors visits and procedures since April :-)

This is sure to be a depressing and stressful thread for some people.

In light of what our health insurance system has evolved into, I feel extremely lucky that I had my major surgery 18 years ago, at a time when I was still covered under my father's employer's health insurance policy. At that time, the total cost was over $100,000. My father advises me the copay was probably under $100 at that time. My mother recently went through knee replacement surgery on the same insurance, which cost over $42,000 and for which my father only had about $75 in copays.

In 1998 and 2000, I had J Pouch revisions, and although by that time I had my own insurance coverage, it was only at 80% because my surgeon was out of network. Between those 2 surgeries, I probably paid between $5,000 and $6,000 cash out of my own pocket. Fortunately the 2000 surgery was the last one.

It's really pretty scary for all of us given the shaky insurance situation some of us have, even the ones who are working. And of course for those who are either out of work or don't have insurance, the situation is dire and my heart really goes out to those people.

With just about 1 year of UC under our belt (but 2 fiscal health plan years), we are about $ 10K out of pocket, with another $ 5K in premiums. Not to mention loss of work, travel, etc.

The surgeries themselves didn't cost me anything 'out of pocket' because that's just how the welfare system here works. I always find this discussion a little interesting though. I have no way of knowing what these things actually cost - surgery obviously still costs money, it just comes from somewhere else than my pocket/insurance, so it's interesting to see some actual figures put to it.

In total I'm out maybe a few thousand US dollars for medication. Things administered at hospitals (remicade, and everything while you're there basically) are covered by welfare.

I'm very happy I didn't have to think about money when I needed surgery or treatment the most. I have nothing but sympathy for those who do.

Of course you could argue I already paid for it, along with all the other past or current tax payers. Not out to discuss politics however. As I said to an American friend, as a European (and Scandinavian in particular) arguing this topic is like sitting in a fish bowl, making guesses at what it's like to be in the next fish bowl over.

I'm now only five days out but as soon as I get an amount I'll let you know. The hospital said they would tell me when I got there to do the surgery, I told them if they wanted to get any money they better tell me sooner, cause I was probably going to have to get a loan to pay them. So they said they would call me tomorrow with an amount. But yesterday my insurance company sent me a letter saying I would have no up front expenses to pay to the hospital! I guess I'll see who is right on Friday.

And Brows you are right as they say
The grass is always greener over the septic tank!
I think that's how that goes?

I also was very fortunate. My total bills for both surgeries ended up to be about $100,000, but I didn't pay a cent. My plan runs October - October with a $1,000 deductible. Since I had a colonoscopy on October 6, the $1,000 went towards that. I scheduled my surgery for January knowing all was paid for and that allowed me most of this year to get as much medical care as possible while everything is covered.