My eight year old son was struggling to breath to the point that he couldn't hold his head up and his little lips were white. We took him to the emergency room where they admitted him into the hospital and diagnosed him with viral pneumonia. They gave him a steroid right away and started on breathing treatments to get his oxygen level up into the 90's. He stayed over night so they could administer breathing treatments around the clock and monitor his oxygen level. He had very labored breathing and could not keep enough oxygen in his blood to send him home without further care from a medical provider.
After he was released with the doctors' instructions to continue the breathing treatments every 4 hours for the next five days, we went home.
In the next few weeks I get the statement from Blue Cross Blue Shield stating that the hospital bill was $15000.00 and they were not covering any of it because this hospital was out of network.
Even with his emergency situation, they expected me to drive across town to go to a hospital that was in their network. We had an emergency on our hands. I didn't have the time to drive another 45 minutes to go to the next major hospital. That was my child in the backseat.
Then we get penalized for taking our child to the nearest hospital to get him emergency help. Who messes around when their child can't breath?
It's not like he had the sniffles or something that he could have gone to his pediatrician for, this was an emergency situation.
We feel VERY ripped off, we pay them all of that money each month, $566.00 to be exact and we had a true emergency and they leave us hanging. What in the hell is insurance for?
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