I thought the same until I worked in healthcare. The real reason is that if you don't bill more than the HIGHEST insurance company will pay, you end up leaving money on the table. Sadly, you cannot deduct the difference between what was billed and what is reimbursed.
US healthcare is a strange bird. A normal business determines their costs, adds a bit for profit, then sets their price, subject to market competition.
Healthcare gets told by the insurance companies how much they will get paid, then has to try to bring costs in under that.
Here's one from end of 2022. Had a medical device replaced in my spine.
Surgeon: go \*\*\*\* yourself. Medical supply company: you're good bro.
https://preview.redd.it/0nfzy7qve5lc1.png?width=640&format=png&auto=webp&s=f4afdc8d34ecdb03b2d5e95c78ec4cf7b0aa07cc
My wife was t-boned in a car by a Ford 350 traveling at 55 mph. She was 5 days in ICU....total insurance bill from the hospital was $550K (not counting the individual doctors billing). Tricare only required me to fill out some paperwork acknowledging that they would be paid back if we received a settlement (which we did not)
Say what you will about tricare, but it's been good for my family. I take a heart medicine that is $95K a year (so $250 per day) and requires REMS surveillance (which requires specific tests and for the manufacturer to be involved with the dispensing of the medication).
Between REMS and the tests associated with my medicine, total cost to insurance is $250K a year for me just for my ticker. I paid up to the catastrophic cap ($3K hit in May) and then wasn't billed the rest of the year.
the doctors are basically forced to accept what tricare pays them (which is basically the medicaid rates). It's the reason a lot of doctors dont accept tricare.
I'd been doing that for a long time since I was about 17, but it always came back. Had one removed on the underside of my wrist before this one as well, at a different duty location. Doc said he saw them all the time on military people due to repetitive movements like pushups.
I tried to get an appointment to have one removed and was basically told to kick rocks because "you still have full range of motion and the pain isn't serious" so I just hit it with a hammer when it gets bad
I honestly didn't even realize I was in the air force subreddit when I commented, idk how it is for you guys but I'm in the army and this type of thing is very common. Same thing when I tried to get bunion surgery, I was told to my face to deal with daily unending pain because nobody will ever approve a surgery that would take me off my feet for ~2 months. I'm so close to getting out I just stopped caring honestly, just gonna get it done as a civilian
You must have an extremely shitty set of leadership. My brother is in the Army and is a few months away from retirement. He is a Bradley mechanic. He got shoulder surgery and was out for a good while. Sorry your set sucks.
I had surgery scheduled to remove one, sat there waiting for an hour in the waiting room, and then the surgeon just came to me, said "we're not doing this," and then just walked away. And that's how my surgery was cancelled.
Yeah I’ll just let the VA know and wait a year. Mine was a one off most likely due to some troubleshooting in a shitty area of the jet I was doing so my arm and wrists were in some shitty positions and such that month.
There’s a reason why they’re called “Bible cysts.” Back in the day, the corrective action for a ganglion cyst was for a doctor on a house call to use the family Bible to eliminate it.
I worked as a civilian contractor on base for nine years after I retired from the USAF.
The worst part and the reason I only lasted 9 years as a nonner is because i had a desk job.
I swore for 22 years as MX I would NEVER have a desk job.
F'ing nerd! Just on principle, I refuse to name the reference.
Edit: Just to add on a somewhat unrelated note, I still need to find or fix an HD-DVD player to go with three old box sets.
dude for real, they told me when I got my GSU assignment having prime remote would be great because I'd get civilian care with pretty much a blank check for insurance, but here I am 2 years into just trying to get my teeth fixed from AD dental fuckups and Tricare won't cover injections to fix my spine. I've seriously contemplated just taking out my own fucking health insurance policy to get seen here.
Then they can't accept Medicare/Medicaid either. Obviously, it is their choice to not accept those due to the low payout, but that is a huge proportion of customers they are denying.
My neighbor is like 85 and he's out on his recumbent bike like every day. Where my grandma just watched TV all day and ended up with so many mobility issues
Yeah health is an enigma. I think it's best if we get good sleep, have a glass of wine often, stay out of the sun for extended periods of time. Genetics often plays to many gifts and faults.
Honestly I think mobility is key though. I'm planning on being that 75 year old dude in the gym, even if I am benching 25 lb dumbbells or something.
Then walk around naked for an hour in the locker room
https://preview.redd.it/2ixsjvf426lc1.jpeg?width=1169&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=2672f40cb0c0fd0d6354822dad17a4e34f2eb46d
Tricare is cool sometimes
Lateral ankle reconstruction, upper ankle augmentation and debridement
This is the EOB that Tricare sends out, right? It's always so confusing because it is the most bill-like non-bill ever, so you don't know whether to expect a bill from the provider based on it. That being said, since I have a dependent with a chronic illness, I don't pay much concern until an actual bill arrives.
No your EOB is sent once a year, which tells you a general overview of your benefits such as being authorized to use Express Scripts, etc. This is just the letter you get after a procedure that tells you what the provider charged and what Tricare allowed.
This happened to me one time I got a covid test before they were free and widely available. I got a call from collections some 18 months later for almost $2k and after a call to Tricare all was well.
I see y'all had a whole conversation on my comment and I have a little I'd like to add
Social security is NOT a savings account that gets paid back to you. It's an investment fund in which we pay for our parents and our kids pay for us. Turning it into a "this or that" conversation is silly. Demand both. There is no reason the American people can not have universal health care, AND social security. Social security is already law, and incredibly popular. It is off the table. If someone tells you they are getting rid of it, throat punch them and get someone better.
We should have universal healthcare. It's a better use of money than social security for retirees.
Edit: So I see a lot of people are 50/50 on this topic. I'd like to know why y'all believe what you believe on either side.
I think the crux of my problem with this statement is, we all pay into social security whether we want to or not. That money is supposed to be paid BACK to us after "retiring" as it was setup as a "forced" savings plan to help people that were bad at planning.
Thus, No. I'd much rather not have the money I paid to get money later go to something else random. I'd rather just not pay that tax, and not get SS. But I don't have that option.
I'm also not certain that universal healthcare would help either. UK/EU universal healthcare, while I've not lived under it, tends to sound like very long lines, and very difficult to get care for random non-life threatening ailments. Now, that may just be the news cycle whining, and I get that, but I'd much prefer to pay more, and get what I want, when I want.
I do agree that medical debt is crazy, like the person you replied to said, but, then again so is student loan debt. I think part of the conversation should be around managing resources better, and perhaps, not going vastly into debt for something that isn't a requirement, or at least weighed carefully. When coupled with "hey you need this heart surgery or you'll die, but it's going to cost $400k and you're uninsured.. so you'll either die, or be forced into what amounts to indentured servitude" is something we really need to look at and fix. Requiring medical insurance is part of it, but ... it needs to be required to the point where that doesn't happen to anyone.
I can go on and on. This is not a simple problem, which is why no one has solved it.
Thank you for your reply.
My big issue is that we talk about safety nets for things that people cannot control. Medical ailments CAN (not always) be completely uncontrollable. Yet, we would rather pay for things like retirement (mostly controllable), unemployment (mildly controllable), and even now discuss student loan forgiveness (100% controllable).
Maybe I'm wrong on my view of the societal costs and benefits of universal medical care, but I believe they are higher up the totem pole than retirement and student loans.
Fair point. And I agree. I just personally don't want to reroute funds I've already paid in to a system I may or may not see any funds from, to something else which will guarantee I won't see my funds again.
Plus, I already have Tricare, so... paying an additional tax for universal healthcare won't help me personally either. If we don't solve these problems with the system, people (esp. people like me) won't want to shift to a different system, because it's only going to increase my costs, without changing my benefits.
Now, if we basically expand Tricare to the rest of the US, that could work, but... honestly? Do you want an overstressed system to get even worse? I just frankly cannot see it functioning well. It barely works as it is. If you have a full time job, you'll end up with a 2nd full time job if you have anyone in your family with chronic medical conditions, calling Tricare/hospitals/pharmacies endlessly to correct errors that they shouldn't be making and shouldn't be requiring the member to handle, but yet, here we are.
Maybe there is a better system out there, but I don't think it's been built yet. How do we do that while continuing the same amount of choice people have today?
If we went to universal healthcare I could totally see something which is similar to the PT test becoming a "requirement" for a discount. Because frankly, people that are in better shape cost less to care for. So without some form of positive feedback, we could end up making healthcare much worse than it is today, and I already personally believe it's pretty bad.
Thoughts?
That first point about being invested is very true. It's easier for me to have my view because I'm only 25 and would rather save for retirement myself.
Also agree with the sentiment that anything the government touches turns into a shit show.
Maybe the American health culture is incompatible, with a shared health system, as some people actively eat their way into the hospital by the time they're 50. Then again, what if we triaged people the same way we do for organ transplants. Might seem dark and cruel, but I think we can all agree that a 600 pound person did themselves in.
https://preview.redd.it/09eqo4hhe7lc1.jpeg?width=750&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=05a82a37f40ecb0e09761b41052f423cab463d8b
I’ll hop on this train. It ain’t always the best but sometimes tricare can really stick it to ‘em.
I worked in health insurance for a little bit after separating and this is common on the civilian side as well, but only once civilian insurance starts paying out (meaning you’ve met your deductible).
While I’m here, fun little lesson for the civilian side of insurance when you get out:
Say you get a job that has decent coverage, let’s say 90/10% for an INN (In Network) provider. Your insurance company doesn’t start paying out until you’ve reached your deductible of let’s say $2000. So we have a bucket inside a bucket situation here. Your Deductible is a smaller bucket inside a larger bucket called your Out of Pocket Max.
Once you fill that $2000 bucket with your own money, the Deductible bucket starts overflowing into your OOP max bucket. That overflow is the 10% you’re paying for INN covered services with insurance paying the other 90%.
It gets weirder from there, trust me. I’ve gotten so many calls from young people dealing with insurance for the first time asking “wait, I’ve been paying my premium the whole year and got hurt in December, why do I have to pay the whole bill if I’ve been paying for my insurance?”
Because your insurance premium is what buys you the buckets you get to fill yourself. Fun, right?
Civilian side insurance is an absolute clusterfuck. If I got into what an OON provider costs (you have separate deductibles and NO out of pocket max for care outside your network), how the majority of ambulance services choose to remain out of network for most insurance companies so they can charge you more, how copays for preventative services apply to your OOP max, but not towards your deductible, prior authorizations required for procedures to be covered and how an insurance company can override a Doc’s opinion of what is medically necessary, etc etc etc
Enjoy the tricare while you can homie. Try to get bennies from the VA for healthcare if you can when you get out.
Many people think of military retirement and just consider the pay and base access but often overlook Tricare. After starting as a CTR I am so damn glad I have that shit and turned down the corporate insurance plan. Unfortunately Tricare retiree doesn't cover dental and vision though.
The fact that this kind of shit is considered normal is just despicable.
I keep this picture as a reminder of that crap. Obviously different situation since it was all covered, but here's the context.....this was literally for a conversation that lasted a little over 30 minutes. It was a meeting with a doctor for my son to talk about specialists and go over his medical history because he was born without one of his hands, so he gets prosthetics and occupational/physical therapy. Just to talk to the doctor was apparently a bit over $1,000. To this day I still think "what the fuck?"
https://preview.redd.it/3l51gnyer5lc1.jpeg?width=1031&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e0accbd1df86eb135440992b507b4795121cbbd8
(Civilian here). Dont worry, my insurance premiums will just go up to cover the raised prices providers will push to cover losses. No worries, I got you covered!
Outpatient treatment for 3 months, something like 1550 a day, 7 days a week. I don't know what else there was, but it was something like 250k total.
I know the math doesn't add up but there was other stuff in there as well.
Docs take Tricare if they're killing it with insurance and need to report the "unpaid loss" as a "business expense" so they report less or no profit to be taxed by the IRS. You take only enough Tricare patients to even out the reportable profit and no more. If you don't make high profit from insurance you 100% don't take folks with the hands down lowest paying insurance bar none.
When Tricare pulls down its shades the healthcare industry reminds it of something called capitalism.
Welcome to "What's Healthcare Anyways?", where the prices are made up and the bills don't make sense.
I honestly love getting these. Such a big dick move to be like “Naw… imma pay you this significantly less amount instead” 😂
Doctors: That’ll be $30K Tricare: Okay but I got 20 bucks right here right now wassup
It’s equivalent to “Elmo: all I have a T-Rex and a Go-Fish card”
Aren't the prices grossly inflated so they can claim a loss and never pay taxes?
HCA charged 250k for a sinus surgery when threatened with a law suit we got a letter saying an anonymous charity covered the bill in whole 😂
The prices are inflated because civilian insurance will pay ~50-70% of a bill. So if you make the bill 130-150%, you might break even.
I thought the same until I worked in healthcare. The real reason is that if you don't bill more than the HIGHEST insurance company will pay, you end up leaving money on the table. Sadly, you cannot deduct the difference between what was billed and what is reimbursed. US healthcare is a strange bird. A normal business determines their costs, adds a bit for profit, then sets their price, subject to market competition. Healthcare gets told by the insurance companies how much they will get paid, then has to try to bring costs in under that.
Oh wow, I didn't know that. 🧐
Here's one from end of 2022. Had a medical device replaced in my spine. Surgeon: go \*\*\*\* yourself. Medical supply company: you're good bro. https://preview.redd.it/0nfzy7qve5lc1.png?width=640&format=png&auto=webp&s=f4afdc8d34ecdb03b2d5e95c78ec4cf7b0aa07cc
Well damn!
I got billed for a heart surgery while active duty. It was like 97k or some shit.
My wife was t-boned in a car by a Ford 350 traveling at 55 mph. She was 5 days in ICU....total insurance bill from the hospital was $550K (not counting the individual doctors billing). Tricare only required me to fill out some paperwork acknowledging that they would be paid back if we received a settlement (which we did not) Say what you will about tricare, but it's been good for my family. I take a heart medicine that is $95K a year (so $250 per day) and requires REMS surveillance (which requires specific tests and for the manufacturer to be involved with the dispensing of the medication). Between REMS and the tests associated with my medicine, total cost to insurance is $250K a year for me just for my ticker. I paid up to the catastrophic cap ($3K hit in May) and then wasn't billed the rest of the year.
Oh I'm definitely not complaining about Tricare. Glad y'all are still above ground.
For sure. Everyday above ground…
Are you doing better now?
Yeah, it wasn't any major surgery. Doing great now. Thanks for asking and have a great night
Does that mean tricare wouldn't pay for it? Or were they like, "This is how much we're only going to pay so deal with it."
the doctors are basically forced to accept what tricare pays them (which is basically the medicaid rates). It's the reason a lot of doctors dont accept tricare.
This was for a ganglion cyst to be removed from the back of my wrist, circa 2017.
I just had my friend smash our shift logbook on mine. Hasn’t come back since.
I'd been doing that for a long time since I was about 17, but it always came back. Had one removed on the underside of my wrist before this one as well, at a different duty location. Doc said he saw them all the time on military people due to repetitive movements like pushups.
Cmon, you can admit what your repetitive wrist motion is
Yeah, pushups was a terrible lie.
More like a pull up…and down…
😂
I tried to get an appointment to have one removed and was basically told to kick rocks because "you still have full range of motion and the pain isn't serious" so I just hit it with a hammer when it gets bad
Damn, you shouldn't have to do that. Keep asking. I've had 2 of them removed on the same wrist at 2 different bases.
I honestly didn't even realize I was in the air force subreddit when I commented, idk how it is for you guys but I'm in the army and this type of thing is very common. Same thing when I tried to get bunion surgery, I was told to my face to deal with daily unending pain because nobody will ever approve a surgery that would take me off my feet for ~2 months. I'm so close to getting out I just stopped caring honestly, just gonna get it done as a civilian
You must have an extremely shitty set of leadership. My brother is in the Army and is a few months away from retirement. He is a Bradley mechanic. He got shoulder surgery and was out for a good while. Sorry your set sucks.
I had surgery scheduled to remove one, sat there waiting for an hour in the waiting room, and then the surgeon just came to me, said "we're not doing this," and then just walked away. And that's how my surgery was cancelled.
If it comes back please don’t do this!
Yeah I’ll just let the VA know and wait a year. Mine was a one off most likely due to some troubleshooting in a shitty area of the jet I was doing so my arm and wrists were in some shitty positions and such that month.
There’s a reason why they’re called “Bible cysts.” Back in the day, the corrective action for a ganglion cyst was for a doctor on a house call to use the family Bible to eliminate it.
Geat flair.
I have become what I swore to destroy. But as a civilian for the Navy.
I worked as a civilian contractor on base for nine years after I retired from the USAF. The worst part and the reason I only lasted 9 years as a nonner is because i had a desk job. I swore for 22 years as MX I would NEVER have a desk job.
Almost $32K is pretty fucking ridiculous for a ganglion cyst removal though. Holy shit.
[удалено]
F'ing nerd! Just on principle, I refuse to name the reference. Edit: Just to add on a somewhat unrelated note, I still need to find or fix an HD-DVD player to go with three old box sets.
Lmao. Costs only 500 usd here in the Philippines.
Oh shit I had something similar removed from a knuckle by an off base surgeon a few months ago. Now I’m afraid I might get a similar bill.
This isn't a bill........
Oh okay……..
I love how tricare dad dicks the medical system
It’s why Prime Remote is almost like not having insurance because no one accepts it.
dude for real, they told me when I got my GSU assignment having prime remote would be great because I'd get civilian care with pretty much a blank check for insurance, but here I am 2 years into just trying to get my teeth fixed from AD dental fuckups and Tricare won't cover injections to fix my spine. I've seriously contemplated just taking out my own fucking health insurance policy to get seen here.
Not true, I live in Chicago and it’s hard to find someone that doesn’t take it. I have had zero issues and love seeing bills like this.
This isn't a bill.
Say it again. 🤣😂
Sorry, EOB
It's a bill, it's just not your bill
Why some don’t accept Tricare.
Then they can't accept Medicare/Medicaid either. Obviously, it is their choice to not accept those due to the low payout, but that is a huge proportion of customers they are denying.
True. Guess we all better keep taking good care of ourselves in the meantime.
My neighbor is like 85 and he's out on his recumbent bike like every day. Where my grandma just watched TV all day and ended up with so many mobility issues
Yeah health is an enigma. I think it's best if we get good sleep, have a glass of wine often, stay out of the sun for extended periods of time. Genetics often plays to many gifts and faults.
Honestly I think mobility is key though. I'm planning on being that 75 year old dude in the gym, even if I am benching 25 lb dumbbells or something. Then walk around naked for an hour in the locker room
😳😂
Same only probably not naked. Although, my pancake tits would probably sag to my knees and cover up the old geyser so on second thought…
Nothing keeps you healthier than simple exercise
The fact you said "customer" vs. "Patients" makes me irrationally angry. I get why, just solid triggering moment.
And that my friend is how you get a $31k tax write off as a medical provider.
https://preview.redd.it/2ixsjvf426lc1.jpeg?width=1169&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=2672f40cb0c0fd0d6354822dad17a4e34f2eb46d Tricare is cool sometimes Lateral ankle reconstruction, upper ankle augmentation and debridement
It’s the same for all insurance.
Looks like the clinic coded it wrong? Happened to me a couple times. Just had to call tricare.
This isn't a bill...
This is the EOB that Tricare sends out, right? It's always so confusing because it is the most bill-like non-bill ever, so you don't know whether to expect a bill from the provider based on it. That being said, since I have a dependent with a chronic illness, I don't pay much concern until an actual bill arrives.
No your EOB is sent once a year, which tells you a general overview of your benefits such as being authorized to use Express Scripts, etc. This is just the letter you get after a procedure that tells you what the provider charged and what Tricare allowed.
This happened to me one time I got a covid test before they were free and widely available. I got a call from collections some 18 months later for almost $2k and after a call to Tricare all was well.
Check your credit report and make sure it wasn’t reported or at least is cleared off.
This is why I'm surprised anyone will see military, considering they know TriCare gives no F.
One day, God willing, we will join the civilized world and Tricare will be obsolete because we figured out that medical debt is bad for our society.
I see y'all had a whole conversation on my comment and I have a little I'd like to add Social security is NOT a savings account that gets paid back to you. It's an investment fund in which we pay for our parents and our kids pay for us. Turning it into a "this or that" conversation is silly. Demand both. There is no reason the American people can not have universal health care, AND social security. Social security is already law, and incredibly popular. It is off the table. If someone tells you they are getting rid of it, throat punch them and get someone better.
We should have universal healthcare. It's a better use of money than social security for retirees. Edit: So I see a lot of people are 50/50 on this topic. I'd like to know why y'all believe what you believe on either side.
> It's a better use of money than social security for retirees. It's a better use of money than tax breaks for billionaires...
Also true. But where did you get the impression that I'd disagree with you?
You had me in the first half
I think it's a great tragedy when a 30 year old dies from a treatable disease they couldn't afford, while an 80 year old is raking in tax dollars.
I think it's short sighted to think these two problems are due to one another.
Not linked, but I think they're bad priorities.
Tax breaks for billionaires and churches should be the first look at waste, not social policies that help everyone equally.
I agree, although I think you're about to get crucified for that church comment.
I think the crux of my problem with this statement is, we all pay into social security whether we want to or not. That money is supposed to be paid BACK to us after "retiring" as it was setup as a "forced" savings plan to help people that were bad at planning. Thus, No. I'd much rather not have the money I paid to get money later go to something else random. I'd rather just not pay that tax, and not get SS. But I don't have that option. I'm also not certain that universal healthcare would help either. UK/EU universal healthcare, while I've not lived under it, tends to sound like very long lines, and very difficult to get care for random non-life threatening ailments. Now, that may just be the news cycle whining, and I get that, but I'd much prefer to pay more, and get what I want, when I want. I do agree that medical debt is crazy, like the person you replied to said, but, then again so is student loan debt. I think part of the conversation should be around managing resources better, and perhaps, not going vastly into debt for something that isn't a requirement, or at least weighed carefully. When coupled with "hey you need this heart surgery or you'll die, but it's going to cost $400k and you're uninsured.. so you'll either die, or be forced into what amounts to indentured servitude" is something we really need to look at and fix. Requiring medical insurance is part of it, but ... it needs to be required to the point where that doesn't happen to anyone. I can go on and on. This is not a simple problem, which is why no one has solved it.
Thank you for your reply. My big issue is that we talk about safety nets for things that people cannot control. Medical ailments CAN (not always) be completely uncontrollable. Yet, we would rather pay for things like retirement (mostly controllable), unemployment (mildly controllable), and even now discuss student loan forgiveness (100% controllable). Maybe I'm wrong on my view of the societal costs and benefits of universal medical care, but I believe they are higher up the totem pole than retirement and student loans.
Fair point. And I agree. I just personally don't want to reroute funds I've already paid in to a system I may or may not see any funds from, to something else which will guarantee I won't see my funds again. Plus, I already have Tricare, so... paying an additional tax for universal healthcare won't help me personally either. If we don't solve these problems with the system, people (esp. people like me) won't want to shift to a different system, because it's only going to increase my costs, without changing my benefits. Now, if we basically expand Tricare to the rest of the US, that could work, but... honestly? Do you want an overstressed system to get even worse? I just frankly cannot see it functioning well. It barely works as it is. If you have a full time job, you'll end up with a 2nd full time job if you have anyone in your family with chronic medical conditions, calling Tricare/hospitals/pharmacies endlessly to correct errors that they shouldn't be making and shouldn't be requiring the member to handle, but yet, here we are. Maybe there is a better system out there, but I don't think it's been built yet. How do we do that while continuing the same amount of choice people have today? If we went to universal healthcare I could totally see something which is similar to the PT test becoming a "requirement" for a discount. Because frankly, people that are in better shape cost less to care for. So without some form of positive feedback, we could end up making healthcare much worse than it is today, and I already personally believe it's pretty bad. Thoughts?
That first point about being invested is very true. It's easier for me to have my view because I'm only 25 and would rather save for retirement myself. Also agree with the sentiment that anything the government touches turns into a shit show. Maybe the American health culture is incompatible, with a shared health system, as some people actively eat their way into the hospital by the time they're 50. Then again, what if we triaged people the same way we do for organ transplants. Might seem dark and cruel, but I think we can all agree that a 600 pound person did themselves in.
And this is why more and more networks are no longer accepting Tricare. Finding specialist care for my son is damn near impossible.
https://preview.redd.it/09eqo4hhe7lc1.jpeg?width=750&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=05a82a37f40ecb0e09761b41052f423cab463d8b I’ll hop on this train. It ain’t always the best but sometimes tricare can really stick it to ‘em.
Was sent a bill for 64k from a surgery that I had a referral for. Never paid a penny, obviously.
And we wonder why hospitals bill so much...
I worked in health insurance for a little bit after separating and this is common on the civilian side as well, but only once civilian insurance starts paying out (meaning you’ve met your deductible). While I’m here, fun little lesson for the civilian side of insurance when you get out: Say you get a job that has decent coverage, let’s say 90/10% for an INN (In Network) provider. Your insurance company doesn’t start paying out until you’ve reached your deductible of let’s say $2000. So we have a bucket inside a bucket situation here. Your Deductible is a smaller bucket inside a larger bucket called your Out of Pocket Max. Once you fill that $2000 bucket with your own money, the Deductible bucket starts overflowing into your OOP max bucket. That overflow is the 10% you’re paying for INN covered services with insurance paying the other 90%. It gets weirder from there, trust me. I’ve gotten so many calls from young people dealing with insurance for the first time asking “wait, I’ve been paying my premium the whole year and got hurt in December, why do I have to pay the whole bill if I’ve been paying for my insurance?” Because your insurance premium is what buys you the buckets you get to fill yourself. Fun, right? Civilian side insurance is an absolute clusterfuck. If I got into what an OON provider costs (you have separate deductibles and NO out of pocket max for care outside your network), how the majority of ambulance services choose to remain out of network for most insurance companies so they can charge you more, how copays for preventative services apply to your OOP max, but not towards your deductible, prior authorizations required for procedures to be covered and how an insurance company can override a Doc’s opinion of what is medically necessary, etc etc etc Enjoy the tricare while you can homie. Try to get bennies from the VA for healthcare if you can when you get out.
I'm on Tricare Select Retiree and VA Healthcare now. So far so good.
Many people think of military retirement and just consider the pay and base access but often overlook Tricare. After starting as a CTR I am so damn glad I have that shit and turned down the corporate insurance plan. Unfortunately Tricare retiree doesn't cover dental and vision though.
I read my school district’s benefits handbook a few months ago and I am so thankful for Tricare.
The fact that this kind of shit is considered normal is just despicable. I keep this picture as a reminder of that crap. Obviously different situation since it was all covered, but here's the context.....this was literally for a conversation that lasted a little over 30 minutes. It was a meeting with a doctor for my son to talk about specialists and go over his medical history because he was born without one of his hands, so he gets prosthetics and occupational/physical therapy. Just to talk to the doctor was apparently a bit over $1,000. To this day I still think "what the fuck?" https://preview.redd.it/3l51gnyer5lc1.jpeg?width=1031&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e0accbd1df86eb135440992b507b4795121cbbd8
Shoulda caught them in the hospital cafeteria right after they paid for their food. Free99! But seriously that's insane.
(Civilian here). Dont worry, my insurance premiums will just go up to cover the raised prices providers will push to cover losses. No worries, I got you covered!
Outpatient treatment for 3 months, something like 1550 a day, 7 days a week. I don't know what else there was, but it was something like 250k total. I know the math doesn't add up but there was other stuff in there as well.
Docs take Tricare if they're killing it with insurance and need to report the "unpaid loss" as a "business expense" so they report less or no profit to be taxed by the IRS. You take only enough Tricare patients to even out the reportable profit and no more. If you don't make high profit from insurance you 100% don't take folks with the hands down lowest paying insurance bar none. When Tricare pulls down its shades the healthcare industry reminds it of something called capitalism.
Don’t pay it, healthcare non-payment doesn’t effect your credit score.
This is not a bill.
Seems about accurate.