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Ok, so what? Shouldn’t we be cheering the fact that a consumer device can potentially detect this without ever requiring a much costlier visit to the ER or doct
by eeeeeeeeeeeee 8y ago
Ok, so what? Shouldn’t we be cheering the fact that a consumer device can potentially detect this without ever requiring a much costlier visit to the ER or doctors office?
My Apple Watch was a few hundred bucks. My latest ER visit for tachycardia (idle heart rate over 100) came to over $3000, with health insurance. And all they did was tests.
- yakshaving_jgt 8y agoI can't fathom how anyone would pay this. For less than three grand, you could fly to Europe for a weekend, stay in a five star hotel, and have all the tests done while you're there.
- PakG1 8y agoIf your insurance pays for it, you probably wouldn't.
- eeeeeeeeeeeee 8y agoMy insurance didn’t pay the $3k, that was my out of pocket cost. And higher deductible plans are on the rise in America. Medical tourism might become a more common thing.
- jaggederest 8y agoAn acquaintance did this for knee surgery, I believe, to Spain. It was cheaper, and pintxos are much better recovery food than hospital jello.
- deburo 8y agoThat can't be true, if you're not a citizen of a certain country, you don't get subsidies for its services.
- yakshaving_jgt 8y agoIt is true, because people do it all the time. Medical tourism is a thing that people do. All the time. You can pay top private clinics for medical services, and it can cost far less than the equivalent would cost in the US, even after insurance.
- Brakenshire 8y agoIt’s more that private clinics in Europe are i) competing with free and ii) don’t have the same incentives to have crazy out of pocket prices which insurance companies negotiate down. So just turning up and paying for private care is a lot cheaper.
- psandersen 8y agoI'm kind of surprised no insurance company has started offering medical tourism yet... go to US hospital for this treatment or get a holiday and treatment in one of these destinations. (edit: I'm not in the US so no idea what is typical outside the stories I see in the media)
- eeeeeeeeeeeee 8y agoNot really an option in this case. When you feel like you’re having a heart attack you don’t go to the airport for a European trip :) That $3k out-of-pocket cost was ECG, blood tests, urine tests, chest x-rays and talking to a doctor for 5 minutes. I wish I was kidding. Healthcare in America is an abomination. I should, add, too, that the $3k cost was because I had insurance. The total bill came out to around $23,000 and I would have had to pay that if I didn't have insurance. Seeing a cardiologist is a totally separate visit/bill.
- yakshaving_jgt 8y agoI understand, and I in no way mean to trivialise what emergency patients go through. But in many cases, for many people, otherwise expensive medical procedures can be planned.
- eeeeeeeeeeeee 8y agoYep, definitely. I tell everyone I know about it as a possibility if they are facing it, as insane as it feels to even make that proposal within the borders of the richest country in the world, that spends more on healthcare than any other nation (almost 20% of our GDP). It's shameful.