Emergency room visits and the resultant bills make me nervous. When I took Mac to the ER on Mother's Day, I told the billing guy that they really needed to bill me quickly as we were leaving the country soon for good. What I was secretly hoping is that the billing would take months/years and by then, nobody would know where we were. Because surely X-rays, doctor's fees, all this medicine that we took home with us, breathing treatments, etc is expensive, right?
Yesterday morning I got an email from the consulate that said the bill had arrived for Mac's visit. YIKES. I assured them I'd come by today to pick up the bill and pay it, unless I had to harvest a kidney first to cover the expense. (And yes, we can get reimbursed by Blue Cross Blue Shield, but that's in the future.)
I picked up the bill today and you will not believe how much it was for. Or I should say how little it was for. Just R$824, which is about $405. I think that is so dirt cheap for an ER visit. I'm sure BCBS will decide it's extraordinarily expensive but considering that a routine visit to the pediatrician here for a well-child checkup costs something like $150, I think $400 is totally worth it for all that great treatment we got at the ER. (Plus I don't like our pediatrician here at all so thankfully we only had to visit him once in nearly 2 years).
Whew! Breathing a sign of relief that I didn't have to sell that kidney after all.
(Another bit of unexpected service from the hospital - on the Thursday after we were there on Sunday, we got a big envelope in the mail from the hospital that included a CD of his X-rays. How cool is that? Mac loves looking at his bones!)
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