If you’re not an experienced parent and maybe a little bit prone to overreaction, you too would rush your child to the emergency room when they suddenly developed a rash. You’re going to have to cough up a lot of cash to ultimately be prescribed a topical ointment you could’ve been told to get by an urgent care doctor, but that’s parenting. It happens.
But what if you didn’t even get to see the emergency room doctor? Should you still be charged thousands of dollars?
That’s what Nathan Jachimiec did for his 11-year-old son, Ian, back in May. They pulled into the Good Samaritan Hospital ER in San Jose, hoping a doctor could explain their son’s mysterious rash, but I never got the chance to do so.
They just sat there, in the waiting room, constantly being told by a nurse to keep doing what they were doing.
U.S. Man Charged $5,000 for Sitting in the ER Waiting Room
The wait was interminable. At some point, Nathan and Ian decided the rash wasn’t as bad as waiting in this emergency room, so they left. They never saw a doctor, and they never got prescribed medication. Nathan collected his son and his son’s rash, and they went back home.
Then came the real emergency: a $5,000 bill from the hospital for an ER visit that never happened.
Jachimiec tried to contest the charge, but the hospital didn’t want to hear it. So, he called in the big guns: 7 On Your Side, one of those local news consumer advocate reporters who hounds and harasses businesses that screw people over and threatens to blast all the drama on the local news.
Suddenly, like magic, the $5,000 emergency room bill vanished. It’s as if it had never happened in the first place: Behold, the power of airing your dirty laundry in public.
In an email, Good Samaritan Hospital stated that it acted swiftly once it became aware of the situation. It also assured the public that it values transparency, compassion, and fairness, but apparently only after getting called out on local TV.
It’s disgusting that the family had to pay $5,000 for not eating and get to see a doctor, but it’s even more offensive that they had to pay that out of pocket. I’m sure there’s somewhere out there a Canadian or a Frenchman or someone from nearly any other developed nation on Earth, and even some that aren’t, who, rightfully, think $5,000 out-of-pocket for an emergency room visit is a crime against humanity.
This is like watching Breaking Bad and realizing all of that could’ve been avoided if Walter White had been covered under a universal healthcare system.
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