A recent appendectomy performed on me; including tests, medications and an overnight stay at the hospital, cost around $2500 without insurance.

Hi thanks, but was it in the us? And was it a laproscopic procedure?

I recently had an emergency appendectomy (laprascopic), stayed in the hospital 24 hours. It cost almost $9,000. Think they saw me coming!!!!

I am in denver/littleton colorado and I just got the bills today.

The hospital (centura health) provided me with a "unitemized" bill for a emergency laproscopic appendectamy (arrived at 8:00 am and had surgery at 4:30 pm (doctor wasn't available until then) and was recovered and able to leave the next day at 11:00 am, so about 27 hours.

Anyway here goes
hospital bill (centura health): $21,987.28
pathology bill (blood testing): $96.00
radiology bill (catscan, I think): $376.00
anesthesiologist: 58 minutes - $920.00/ emergency condition $184.00 = $1104.00
surgone: initial care - $141.00 / laproscopic appendectomy - $1101.00, minus -$44.00 approved write off/-$344.00 total: $854.00


now the only thing I see as reasonable on here was the cat scan, blood test and surgery.


My total bill is $24,417.28 for a routine appendectomy and very short hospital stay. With no itemized bill from hospital.

Try and top that, I just got the bill today and I sure ain't paying that amount. They wonder why no one pays them

if I am gonna get bad credit anyway because I can only pay half in the next few years anyway then by the time I pay it off it will be past 7 years and it would be off of my credit by that time anyway.

Now if it were all in all only about $5,000 I would try as hard as I can to come up with that money withn 90 days. Afterall I do appreciate the technolgy and expertise and care of everyone involved in the procedure, it went very smooth and I am still alive.

Well maybe I will post back my experience after everything gets sorted out!

Later, elijah

Hey anonymous.

I'm doing a research project on real charges on various surgeries performed in the us in a hospital and would be interested in viewing your bills. What I need is all info except yours. I'm not interested in the patient but how they charge, what for and how much. I need all the bills from all the doctors and hospital. Could be up to 6 different billers. So cross out all the personal info. I must see itemized charges, name of hospital etc.
If you could send send this to me it would be great.

Mathew

My hostpital bill for an uncomplicated laproscopic appendectomy (24 hours in the hosptial) was $22,500 which did not include the doctors' fees.

Has anyone had a recent appendectomy in the san francisco bay area? I am seeking a copy of an itemized hospital bill and reimbursement info from the health insurance company (with all personal info blacked out). My niece had an emergency appendectomy in april 2005 and the bill for her 2 night stay plus surgery was $30,000. Since she is uninsured and we want to negotiate her bill with the hospital, we are trying to accumulate data on what a major health insurance company like blue shield or blue cross would pay for the services that she received. Thanks!

Had my appendectomy on 8-29 in dallas texas.
Went to er at 2am monday left hospital at 2 pm on tuesday.. About 36 hours...

So far the bill sent to my insurance is 21,465 from the hospital.

This has put me over my deducatble of five grand so my surgeon, and anesthesiologist should get paid by the ins comp.

Now I have to figure out how to pay off my deducatble plus my 25% of the bill up to 3 grand. I am on the hook for 8 grand and I have insurance.

What is the deal??? I guess the hospital is going on a payment plan.

Any other advice???

Kevin

My 20-year old daughter just had an emergency non-lapro appendicitis operation, after diagnosis by ultra scan. She spent 3 days in a private hospital, had almost daily post-operative visits to the surgeon, mainly to see how the incision was going. Total cost was under $1,400. Yes, that's $1,400. Oh, I should mention this happened while she was in NICARAGUA for a college semester program. We had outside US health insurance for her. So the insurance company got the break on this one. I'll bet they did high fives all around. $10 to $20 thousand for an appendix operation is stealing.

Okay just for getting diagnosed with appendicitis at Lakeside Hospital in Bastrop, Texas, $7749.35

They didn't the capability to perform the surgery there, so they did the standard blood, urine, catscan, and diagnosis. Then had to be
transferred to another hospital.

this health care system is out of controle...my brother just went to the hospital for appendicitis and was hoping to see ball park what it may cost to calm my mom down as dad let the insurance lap. These charges kind of charges can't be right. I think the people are getting ripped off.

I agree... these costs are out of control. Such a routine, simple surgery should not cost so much.

My appendectomy last summer cost around ~$9,000. My insurance covered about $2,500 of it. Basically, I believe 90% of these companies' efforts are to find ways to get out of paying for stuff.

I still have an outstanding $5,500 bill with the hospital. I'm a recent college grad... that's about how much I've been able to save in the year I've been out of college. Pretty depressing.

This is an interesting problem. People think that doctors get paid too much, but really when you look at the bills hospitals charge far far more than doctors do. On the one hand, it is expensive, on the other hand, THEY SAVED YOUR LIFE! How much is your life worth? And how many of you have no problem spending 9-25 thousand on a car? Or more? Is a car worth more than your life? How much did the college grad pay for college? Is college worth more than your life? Taxes on owning a home are thousands a year, is owning a home worth more than your life?

However, healthcare costs are not based on the value of a life (or penicillin would be very very expensive instead of very very cheap, consider that every time you get an antibiotic to treat an infection, you are getting a GREAT value). Much of the cost is instead a result of the very expensive practice of defending malpractice claims, of which only 1% are ever successful at showing malpractice occurred. So of that bill, thousands goes to lawyers, liability insurance companies, and the cost of satisfying all the bureaucracies that are designed to ensure safety and privacy (HIPAA, OSHA, CLIA, JACHO, state medical boards, etc). Would you be willing to pay half as much if you promised not to sue, knowing that only 1% of suits are successful anyway? Would you be willing to have less government regulation of healthcare so you could pay less? Once you are ready to say yes, the cost of healthcare will go down.

For what it's worth, back in the 1950s, such a procedure would have been around $500, including a 2-3 day hospital stay.

Emergency appendix removal in 2009, surgery last week... hospital bills at $24,000 and climbing by the day. Going to the mailbox is depressing.

I am a surgeon, I have worked for an HMO for 20 years and am out of touch with bills for that period of time so I did not have a quick answer when my son asked about his friend's $36,000 appendectomy so I am doing research.
I found an article published in Feb 2009 in the J of the Am College of Surgeons, where the authors estimated from national data from the Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project a year 2005 cost for uncomplicated laparoscopic appendectomy at 5,000 and for open appendectomy at 4,000. These would be hospital costs not reflecting emergency room or surgeon or anesthesiologist.
Surgeons fees are probably about 2000 now, I think Medicare would pay about 500 depending on where you are in the country. Cost verses charge ratio is a big issue in hospital bills.
My business office for the HMO I work for said our charges would be about $10,000 for hospital and all doctors for the hospital stay but not the ER. Regretably I cannot guarrentee you that price if you show up here. Given the range of $2,500 to $40,000 as mentioned in other posts (excluding Nicarauga) it would be nice to be able to price search on Google.

For 10,000 $US you should be able to get an hour and a half in the operating room, 1 or 2 doses of antibiotics, $800 of single use laparoscopy equipment, a bit less propofol than Michael Jackson, a competent anesthesiologist and decent surgeon and then an hour in recovery and overnight in the hospital.

If by the way you opted for "NOTES" so you had no scars at all expect to have a bill in excess of $50,000.

Here's one for you: My laparoscopic appendectomy (no complications) on August 15, 2009 (arriving in the ER at 10:15pm Friday night, surgery on Saturday and one overnight hospital stay) just reached $54,000, and I'm sure I'm not done seeing all the bills. And I have scars to show for it, too!

Yes, I do value my life, and yes, I am thankful I was able to have this procedure. Being fluent in Spanish, I wish I could have gone to Nicaragua for the operation, but unfortunately I couldn't wait.

I have survived a benign brain tumor and am a breast cancer survivor, and it scares me to death to think about what our health care system is going to look like in the future!

Went through ER, abdominal CT Scan, laproscopic appendectomy, one night in hospital.

Hospital fees are at about $25000,
Surgeon's and doctors fee about $5000

$30,000 total
This was in Kansas City at KU MED hospital - great hospital but a huge ripoff.

I'm a grad student with crappy insurance. I'm responsible for about $22,500. I also live off student loans and at the end of the year will be $200,000 in student debt -

Think I'll pay.....I have no income. The only thing I have in my name is a car and an IRA worth $1600.