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Monday, December 31, 2012

The Procedural Costs

While sitting in the cath lab for DH's first stent placement, I couldn't help but worry about what all of this was going to cost us.  I was glad that we knew what was going on, that he was under medical care, that he wasn't having a heart attack, but I still had to push away the money worry thoughts in order to keep myself calm.

To get a preliminary idea, I had our adult daughter Google "stent placement costs".  Well, you could just about pick which dollar range you wanted to believe.  It ranged in cost from $30,000 to $120,000.  So, the Google idea wasn't a good idea.

I'm a control freak, but this is one topic of which I had to exercise patience.  Fortunately, a couple weeks later, DH was able to get the breakdown from the insurance company, and because I had already drummed up considerable medical costs this past year, we were very close to meeting our out of pocket costs for the family for the year, which was $10,000.  My GERD troubles had landed me in the hospital, and with an endoscopy, a gallbladder removal, and trip to the hospital in an ambulance, so I had already spent $7,000 of our deductible plus total out of pocket costs.

Now the bills have rolled in and our bills go as follows (rounding).....

10/18/12 - Cath lab Costs $29,000  and we owe 987.00 with insurance paying the rest. (For a standard stent placement)
10/18/12 - Cardiologists fees, $2,000 and we owe 280.00 with insurance paying the rest.
12/3/12 - Cath lab costs $28,000 and we owe 1000.00 with insurance paying the rest. (For a CTO revascularization plus stent placement)
12/3/12 - Cardiologist fees $2000 and we owe $220 with insurance paying the rest.

These fees don't inclue the CTA Angiography that originally detected the problem, nor the doctor visits, which we have paid about $9.00 per visit.  Nor does it include initial medication costs, which I think we forked out about $30.00.

Cardiac Rehab will be 100% covered by insurance because it is preventive in nature for future heart attacks, and all medication in 2013 will be 100% covered due to it's preventive use, which is a relief because Simvastatin would have been $200.00 per month, and Plavix would have been $80.00 per month without insurance paying for it.

I don't know what will happen in 2014, when Obamacare kicks in, but I expect Clark to be off of all of his medications by then.

I am posting these costs with the hopes this will benefit anyone who might find themselves in our shoes someday.  It would have been a comfort for me to know up front what was ahead for us on the financial end of things.  Thankfully, we had the savings to cover what we did owe.







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