Wow. That's horrific. I'm sorry you had to go through that as well. That's awful care. I had a similar situation (not in my mouth, but on the nape of my nec

Wow. That's horrific. I'm sorry you had to go through that as well. That's awful care. I had a similar situation (not in my mouth, but on the nape of my neck. A sebaceous cyst that was infected and swollen. This was only a couple years ago and I actually went to one of those "urgent care" centers. They took one look and said "nothing we can do, you should go to the emergency room." For which they charged my insurance company $1800 (of which I was billed ~$200 -- money those assholes will never get, I might add). So those folks aren't necessarily the best choice either. So I did go to the emergency room and was ushered into an exam room within an hour. They did examine it and me and actually got the on-call resident from the surgery department to open it up and drain it. It helped a lot, but they did a half-assed job and I had to go back for more cutting/draining. Even now, the sac that the sebaceous cyst grew from was not removed (GRRR!) and I will (probably this year) have it removed and the site closed up properly. That's much better than your experience, but still not that good. It was still a few thousand dollars, although my insurance paid most of it. But whatever hospital you went to should be named and shamed, because they didn't do (provide adequate care) what they were supposed to (and billed for) do. That was awful and you have every right to be angry -- but it's almost certainly not worth legal action -- and more's the pity. The bigger issue (IMHO) is less about quality of care (although as we've both experienced, that can be quite variable -- and that's certainly an issue) is the business model around health care in the US. Which makes accessing health care and understanding the costs much more difficult than it should be. I'm all for a single-payer system or, as they have in Germany (at least IIUC), private insurers that are non-profit by law. Unfortunately, that's unlikely to happen here -- as the insurance (and healthcare) lobby will push hard to maintain their profits -- sucking resources from the system that could instead be used to provide better care. And the current model also encourages consolidation, which harms small communities the most (see this joke[0] for context), since there isn't a whole lot of profit to be made, and hospitals have expensive infrastructure requirements. [0] source: https://motd.ambians.com/quotes.php/name/freebsd_fortunes/toc_id/1-0-2/s/75 https://motd.ambians.com/quotes.php/name/freebsd_fortunes/to... On his first day as a bus driver, Maxey Eckstein handed in receipts of $65. The next day his take was $67. The third day's income was $62. But on the fourth day, Eckstein emptied no less than $283 on the desk before the cashier. "Eckstein!" exclaimed the cashier. "This is fantastic. That route never brought in money like this! What happened?" "Well, after three days on that cockamamie route, I figured business would never improve, so I drove over to Fourteenth Street and worked there. I tell you, that street is a gold mine!" Edit: Fixed formatting. Removed extraneous text.