A Hospital Treated A Baby With A Nap And An $18,000 Bill
A baby fell out of a bed and hit his head, was taken to the hospital where he was treated with a nap, bottle, and a nearly $19,000 bill.
By DAVID on July 2, 2018
This actually happened a couple years ago, but the hospital just now finally got around to sending the bill to the family. A vacationing couple and their baby were staying in a hotel in San Francisco. Their baby fell off the bed and hit his head. The baby wouldn’t stop crying, so the parents thought there may be some internal injuries. They call the hospital, and get an ambulance ride.
The hospital checked out the baby, and found nothing wrong internally. The baby simply needed a nap and some formula. The parents got some food for the baby, and he took a nap in his mother’s arms. After a few hours, they were discharged, and continued on their vacation. No big deal, right? That’s what the parents figured too. After their vacation, they went back home to South Korea. Two years later, they got a letter in the mail from the hospital.
The letter was actually a bill. On the bill was a number that seemed slightly over the top. $18,836 is the exact number, and yeah, the parents were just as shocked. There were charges for various things like you’d expect form a hospital, x-rays, exams, etc. But there was one stand-out price that took the cake. Something called a “trauma activation” had the largest cost, coming in at a whopping $15,666. That’s the “response fee” that comes along with a trauma call, not unlike a baby hitting his head after falling out of a bed.
Why is the fee so much? According to Time.com, “A trauma fee is the price a trauma center charges when it activates and assembles a team of medical professionals that can meet a patient with potentially serious injuries in the ER. It is billed on top of the hospital’s emergency room physician charge and procedures, equipment and facility fees.”
