10mo ago

That'll teach ya

192 comments

Told a friend how I was feeling and had a similar bill. $2500 with insurance. Probably won’t be talking about my feelings again unfortunately
- This might sound unsympathetic, but it's easy to put someone else in a situation where they must call the police / ambulance.
  It doesn't really matter how close a friend is. If you say you're at risk of harming yourself or others, they don't have a lot of options.
  
  I work for a mental health crisis line. We are taught, with extremity, to always go for least intrusive intervention possible. We will only ever call Emergency Services after a literal check list to ensure it's the last resort possible.
  Practically the only times we ever call EMS on someone is if they tell us they are actively dying this very second, due to injury or overdose, etc. Or if they, after all of our attempts to listen, empathize, talk about what's going on, talk about how they're feeling tonight, work on what options there might be, who in their lives might be able to help, listing resources, and attempting to safety plan; if after all that, they say "yeah, I'm gonna kill myself specifically in this fashion and I'm gonna do it right now, and I have the means available to me." Then hang up and don't answer when we call back. Then we call EMS.
  It's drilled into us that EMS is expensive for the person, and potentially dangerous because police are often not great at responding to Mental Health emergencies. So always the last last last resort.
  
  So many people seem to only care about life and not dignity. Locking someone up against their will for being suicidal will always be wrong in my mind. Unless they are threatening harm to someone else, then it might be warranted in order to protect the threatend person.
  
  Few people are required reporters and those will be medical workers, public school employees, and people who work for universities for the most part. Calling 911 will get your friend shot by the police in the worst case, and traumatized and in debt in the best case.
  
  I get that. I never said I intended to harm myself or others to them. In my opinion they overreacted and nothing I said could convince the ambulance not to take me.
- To be fair, your friends shouldn't be billing their time to your insurance.
  
  There's a hotline for a reason. Get them to call that and let them figure it out. They're also trained to talk people into stabilization, for free.
- ♥️ I care about your well-being Internet stranger. I too have those days and have come close to seeing it through. You aren't alone.
  
  Thanks ❤️ you are awesome. Feel free to reach out any time. Even to chat about nothing
- i think you have to look for better friends if they charge you for talking about your feelings
- Your friend was an idiot, I’m very sorry.

I called no one and told no one and just let it bottle up. Totally a cheaper option but I wouldn't recommend that either.
- I tried the same technique and then ended up trying to kill myself using all the pills, but that just made me sick and throw up followed by tremors for a few weeks. I was twice a failure.
  After a few more failed attempts and visits with bad therapists, I finally found professionals and medication that worked for me and I've been suicide-attempt-free for 13 years now! And the past 6 years have seen significantly more good days than bad.
  You win this round, modern medicine...
- Not everyone is as lucky to be able to do that either.
- Sadly sometimes that is the safest option.

Some online friends called 911 on my son when he was just a few weeks shy of 18 and he was placed on a psych hold for a week for self-harming thoughts.
Don’t get me wrong, I am very grateful they saw signs he’d managed to hide from us, but since the paperwork took a few weeks to process, he not only had to deal with his mental health issues, but also got an 18th birthday present of a $20,000 bill for inpatient services under his name. That definitely didn’t help his mental state at all, and it took years to sort it out.
Later, he told me all he learned from the whole experience was to never tell anyone what he really thinks. As a mom, that scares the shit out of me.
- Wouldn't it have made sense for him to declare bancrupcy at that point.
- You have a smart kid

Crisistextline.org has helped me out of some dark places - it's no substitute for medical care, but it is free and they are always available. Hopefully someone will see this comment who can benefit from this service.

Dear Americans, I'm not writing this to gloat... But what the fuck have you let happen to your country. Health care is a human right!
I'm currently in hospital, for a second time in a month. First time, I came in with a "very nasty pneumonia", which turned into sepsis, I needed surgery to help clear the crap from my lung. They sent me home after 14 days. They also flew me from my local small hospitals to the bigger one I'm in now.
I was home for 4 days and started getting severe chest pains around my heart. So I'm back, feeling way better now, is a long weekend so no doctors to make decisions.... I'm stuck in here till Tuesday at least. On Tuesday it will be a total of 24 days. Various medications and treatments etc...
My expected bill at the end of all of this is $0.00.
The only real cost is the gas from hour each way for my family coming to visit. All meals are covered.
I honestly have no idea how much my time here is costing the national health service. The are no numbers discussed, everything is just what you need to get better.
- That's the Standart in about every developed nation on this planet. I don't get it either what the USA is trying to accomplish there.
  A thing that isn't obvious seeing that insanely inflated prices is, that these are prices for individuals and won't be payed by insurances. If you have let's say a 70k hospital bill, the insurance might just say we only pay you 8k. The hospital then takes the 8k and writes of the other 68k as a loss. This results in the hospital not earning any money on paper and they don't pay taxes.
  My favorite thing to look at, when it comes to these inflated prices in USA Healthcare ae the prices of saline solution.
  Have a read if you're interested.
  https://www.goodbill.com/hospital-price-of-saline
  
  I don’t get it either what the USA is trying to accomplish there
  Privatize profits. Socialize losses.
  
  That is very confusing.
  Thousands of dollars, but also somewhere between $3 - $120, what a fucked up system.
  
  Sustain and further enrich an elite class of wealth. At any cost.
- But what the fuck have you let happen to your country.
  Uh. It hasn't changed.
  "All men are created equal"
  IS SLAVE STATE
  Always has been
  Same as it ever was...
  Same as it ever was...
  Same as it ever was...
  Same as it ever was...
  Same as it ever was...
  Same as it ever was...
- Yeah, I logged into the app here in Sweden, sent a message with what my problem was. Got a reply in 2 days, saw a doctor in a week, she suggested surgery, it was scheduled in 4 weeks. Had the surgery, got a bunch of meds, was off work for a week with 80% of my salary. Paid 500sek, like $50.
  I fucking love paying taxes.
- No, you don't understand. You didn't get treated yet, you're still waiting to be seen. If you don't pay for medical insurance then you wait 62518262 years to see a doctor and you die before you ever see them. Also they decide to let you die because something something government death panels.
  -American media on universal healthcare.
  Seriously though, almost any person you talk to in America that is against universal healthcare magically knows people in Canada that have died waiting to be seen or have 6 months wait times for their very painful conditions. Every time... Even people like my mother who I know doesn't know any Canadians says she does....
  American "rugged individualism" has murdered compassion and empathy and has done nothing but foster greed amongst all of us. It's me me me me, MY tax money going to treat YOUR disease, taking up space making ME wait to be seen. Turns out ultra individualism makes for a shitty society.
  
  That "in socialist European countries you get put on a waiting list" canard really doesn't wash anymore, either, since here in capitalist private insurance America I am at this very moment being forced to wait two months before I can even have my initial consultation with a doctor.
  Two months.
  
  Total wait time... Hmmmmm let's see, about the amount of time it took for me to say "I'm having trouble breathing, my name and DoB" so they could look up my NHI number, all of 3 minutes.
  I think you have hit the nail on the head with the "rugged individualism" comment. Just across from me is a dude from Sri Lanka, broken leg at the local mountain bike park. He deserves the best treatment we can give him, I have no idea if he has travel insurance or doesn't really matter, he is here we treat him.

Called the VA crisis line a while back, talked to a case worker and they told me they'd have someone pick me up. A little while later I get a knock on the door from a city cop with his holster unbuckled there to take me to the psych ward of our local shitty hospital.
Spent three days in what essentially was One Flew Over except my nurse Ratchet was a part time psychiatrist that didn't completely speak English, and was a total dick.
Ended up checking myself out because nothing was being accomplished there beside morning calisthenics. Later that week, I got a bill from the hospital for $1200, and the VA said they wouldn't cover it because I didn't call it in within 72 hours... Even though it was a VA rep that started the process, and it was related to a service-connected injury (PTSD).
This was over ten years ago, but it's comforting to know some things never change.
- The VA screwed up my meds by sending them to a non existent address. So I had to go to the local ER to get them. (I'm not sure who would even ask for psych meds that aren't tranquilizers but apparently they're controlled just like opiates...) At any rate. Same story, I called first and they told me that's what I had to do. So I got a rideshare to the hospital because I was also having a really bad day. The local ER was really great. But the VA then sent me a bill. I called their number and they said I was supposed to drive myself 2 hours to the nearest VA hospital. I told them that would have been the worst choice I could have made and they could either pay for it or explain to Congress why I'm paying for their malfunction. And you know what? Somehow, some way it worked. They took it back and I never had to pay it.
  But then they got me back on an ambulance ride years later, (after they swore to Congress they'd start paying for ambulance rides).
  At any rate, I just wanted to let you know you're not alone. Get what you can from the VA but never let them get you.
- I am honestly surprised they even answered, or did anything at all.
  Called them once (same issue with PTSD) and the lady put me on hold, then hung up. It made me laugh at how stupid this whole system is, then I got drunk and fell asleep.
- Dam, unfortunately, the system that is so good for those who want to enlist, quickly forgets those who return from the battlefield.
  These situations. In my opinion, there should be no costs, and they should not be based on 72 hours, or any type of restrictions.
  In addition to not making any sense in this specific case, if it was started this way.

Mental health hospitals are hellish too. I can’t fucking stand Married with Children, not because of how stupid or unfunny it is, but because it was always on and I get flashbacks.
I attempted years ago - because I was dead broke and about to have to drop out of college. When I got out, I had lost my job and had to do survival sex work to eat.
The power structure of those places facilitate horrific abuse. For example, the Indian man whose screams have haunted my dreams for the past ten years - a man who had no family, came to the facility with no clothing… the staff (and patients) bullied the shit out of him. No one in that hospital was interested in helping him.
The psychiatrist I saw for maybe 15 minutes at the beginning of the day. All they did was prescribe me meds. There wasn’t any really meaningful therapy, at least as I understood it? It was more of a holding pen.
I think in the US, the horrifying truth is that mental health resources are mostly illusory. 988 exists so that we can pass out 988 stickers and pens - we can be the good people providing help. Therapists exist, but the waiting lists for good ones can be months and there are thousands of disturbed LPCs who went in to counseling for the wrong reason.
CBT is a shitty modality for things like “I’m miserable because I can’t afford to eat” or “I’m stressed because I got fired from my job when they found out I was trans” or even something as dumb “my body tenses up and I can’t focus my eyes when hear the name Al Bundy.” It’s symptoms focused and can be harmful for certain situations. But it also is often the only modality that one can easily access.
The entire structure of the mental health system in America is horrifically broken, but fixing it would require a complete overhaul of the system. So instead it’s bandaids - employee assistance programs and chat hotlines.
- My daughter, who does have psychological issues (don't we all?) but nowhere near the need to put her in a facility, has heard so many horror stories about them that she was terrified we would put her in one someday. It doesn't help that there's a mental hospital that down the road from us that has super severe patients. Her psychiatrist is part of their network and I didn't understand that it wasn't in that building for her first appointment, so she also had the misfortune of seeing some people with problems far more severe than hers when we went to the wrong place. I felt bad for her, but I also think it helped her understand that her symptoms are not even remotely close to the severity that would have anyone consider putting her in one, so maybe it was for the best. She certainly has not expressed that fear since we made that accidental trip there.
  I'm glad you made it out of there with your mental health in tact enough for you to come across as a basically mentally sound person to everyone here.
- Mental health "hospitals" in America are basically just small prisons, but without even the minimal oversight that prisons have.
  You can be held in a mental health institution indefinitely if any doctor feels like it, with no recourse, no appeal, and without being charged with any crime, and not even with the need to actually diagnose you with anything. They can strip you, bully you, take whatever possessions you had on you and destroy them, humiliate you, and within those walls you have no rights. And at the end of it all, they'll send you an astronomical bill proportionate to the amount of time they imprisoned you.
  Unless you are, like, to the seeing-imaginary-people levels of out of whack, do yourself a favor and don't think checking in to an American mental health institution will help you. You'll might go in with one problem, and you'll come out with two or more.
  
  This may be the case in many other countries as well.
- Thanks for sharing. Hope you're feeling better now. Having witnessed people breaking down myself and it's no joke. If people have no way out of a shitty situation, I mean, what can they do?
- 988 Worker here.
  Every single time someone asks me what we can do to fight the mental health epidemic in the U.S. and the rising suicide rates, I always always tell them the keys are workers rights, affordable housing, a healthcare system that doesn't suck, all of this shit that the person asking typically doesn't want.
  
  Just curious - is 988 using “AI”? I’ve seen some strange and suspect conversations.
- I've found CBT actively harmful for mental health struggles that result from ill health and physical disability. Like if I'm anxious about whether I'm strong enough to make it to the bathroom, CBT techniques seem to involve pretending that falling and pissing yourself on the floor isn't a real risk that needs to be accounted for.
  Sometimes you're stuck in a situation with no win state and the last thing that's useful is gaslighty bullshit that ignores reality.

That’ll teach you to have mental health problems. Now get back to work! This is America.
- The American Scheme

I'm actually only surprised that she got the bill after one month.
- Maybe that's just the first bill.

Anyone calling 911 and thinking they are getting anything other than a bunch of thugs that will choatically escalate what ever situation you are in, I'm sorry.
- In the US there's a hotline you can call before calling the police.
  
  But then it’s still the police who will show up and be excited to shoot you. “Person is suicidal, so they are ready with lethal force! Lock and load!”

I don't have severe mental health issues (although I do have them), but I am dealing with an undiagnosed medical issue and I am at the Mayo Clinic right now because of it. Before I came here, just from everything I've been through in the past year and a few months, we're thousands of dollars in medical debt. I am terrified of what the bill from Mayo will be. They are in our insurance network and we supposedly have "good" insurance, but how good can even good insurance be when you can rack up that sort of debt in under two years just so you can stay alive?
The for-profit healthcare system in America is the truly insane thing, far more insane than this woman was when she felt suicidal.
- I think many Americans are unaware that you can still be bankrupted by medical debt even with the very best insurance.
  
  All I can say is at least they don't charge you interest. That would make it even worse.

"If you're feeling suicidal please call for help you're not alone!"
The help:
- You're not alone, your insurance's billing department will always be with you

I’ll do nothing for half as much money. It’s a great deal. Call now.
- I'll go so far as to tell you life is worth living and direct you to the suicide hotline for a measly $500.
  On a serious note, if anyone has felt suicidal and is still here, I'm glad. I've been suicidal and been alone. I've been suicidal and had a friend stay with me. I've stayed with more than one friend who was ready to end it. I know how you feel and I know how it feels to lose someone and almost lose someone to suicide. Please get help (preferably without calling 911 unless there's no other way) if you're feeling that way because in the long run it's absolutely worth it.

This is why I never had a safety plan. I literally cannot afford what I need to feel better, and have to keep quiet or risk losing everything and still not be helped. Nobody will know I was in crisis until I'm gone.

look on the bright side: she probably won't be doing that again.
- it feels more like incentive to finish the job rather than seeking help, which is super fucked up

Police arrive on the scene
Shoot suicidal person
"Problem solved"
- I thought this is how Murica does it, but obviously not, because they want your money.

This country is rotten.

Why would someone call 911 if they are feeling suicidal?
- I don't know, why would anyone anything?
  If you're suicidal you might not be thinking clearly, and emergency numbers are associated with help from a young age, and if you feel like you're in a real emergency and you need help...
  
  What I mean is why not call suicide prevention? Why 911?
- Because they likely didn't know about other options.
- Maybe educate people when they do wrong? Instead of judging them as stupid or wrong?
- 988 is the national suicide hotline in the USA.
  https://www.samhsa.gov/find-help/988
- Being suicidal, or even depressed, sorta implies they are not thinking clearly or able to make good choices. Alternatively, maybe they just didn't know of a better option?

I guess they didn't want to chat on the phone. They wanted to be hospitalised. But why knows
- If you're struggling with acute social thoughts, checking yourself in is not a bad idea. Especially if you live in a country with a proper healthcare system

What an idiot
- -ic system

Don't let this discourage you from seeking help. Money isn't anything, and this is definitely not the way these things always resolve themselves.
- I was a practicing psychologist.
  I left the field precisely because I became disillusioned with the entire system of "help" for people without significant monetary means being to provide brief coping strategy trainings because their therapy allotment is extremely limited, toss some pills at them, and throw them right back at their problems that are MOST OFTEN either caused by or exacerbated by long-term economic struggles.
  Our gallows joke of a mental health system in the US is designed to get the poor that need help right back to producing value for the class of people that get unlimited mental health assistance and intentionally leave the poor struggling in subsistence to live large, right back to what drove them to the ledge, often with a fresh debt load burden to add to their existing burdens as this post points out for the crime of breaking down and begging "please, somebody fucking help me!" in one form or another.
  I am literally still traumatized from the profound lack of help I was permitted to provide these people.
  I truly don't mean to offend, but your pretty words don't reflect the reality the poor and working poor contend with at all, and I can tell you from years of trying to be the change for them with few to no significant resources to offer that many of them correctly find it patronizing.
  
  Also mental health practitioner here. The confused looks my family gives when they ask how to solve the mental health crisis. And I say worker's rights, better pay, affordable housing, single payer health care, measures against online radicalization, etc
- lol your money comment indicates that you’ve never had to worry about it
- Maybe seek help from people there to help and not from cops. ACAB
  
  How did this get so many people agreeing with it? 911 is emergency services, it is not a hotline to the police.

That's way too much, but they called for immediate, emergency service, with many many professionals involved. Essentially rush, expedited service.
Then, by evidence of not needing to stay the night, they didn't use that service.
They effectively booked a first class ticket on the next flight out of town, then didn't go to the airport.
This is not a defense of the American healthcare system, it sucks. But they used the system that's there, and shouldn't be surprised. They are certainly right to be upset.
Edit I know folks don't like this, but nothing I've said is incorrect. I also made clear I don't support the current system.
Why is Lemmy so bad at acknowledging reality? Are the downvotes making you feel better?
- You're saying it in a douchey way, but you're right: There are other places to contact if you need to help, including the suicide hotline which is 988.
  However, sometimes people need that sort of help and it shouldn't cost them $2500. People are definitely dying because they don't want to pay for an ambulance ride.
  
  However, sometimes people need that sort of help
  I mean calling 911 means you're probably going to get a police officer who's just as likely to shoot you as help you. And what is an ambulance going to do? They're not nearly as trained in mental health episodes . And hospitals for my experience generally treat mental health episodes like it's still the 50s. Without much consideration for the mentally ill basically. Getting charged that much is absolutely a failure of the system. But they weren't even using the right system in the first place.
  Calling the suicide hotline which is free would have been a lot more practical then tryna get emergency room doctors to help you.
  
  Right, the cost is absurd, which I addressed. I'm not being a douche, the real world just isn't an internet bubble.
- Please tell me what a person experiencing a suicidal crisis is supposed to do other than call 911. Sane countries don’t charge people for emergency services. The US is not a sane country.
  
  Call immediate emergency services obviously
  I made clear I don't agree with the system. Did you choose to not read some of the words I wrote?

Two ways of looking at this. Either you are smart, and you saved your own life for just $2000.
Or, you’re an idiot for not calling one the free helplines to see if they could chill you out first.
Either way, I would have retained my dignity, and not posted it on social media just to bash the health system. That’s actually fucked up.
- Yet, you have forfeited your dignity by posting support for that same health system on social media. 👀
  
  I don’t know how you bend your brain to interpret what I wrote as support for the US health system, because it’s obviously no such thing .
  But even if it was, I don’t think it’s undignified to quite same extent as posting about a personal health crisis for twitter clout .
  Edit: lol How many accounts are you running ?
- Have you considered that someone on the brink of ending their own life might not be thinking clearly nor care much about their future financial situation?
  
  Yes. Luckily they care about it again now it seems.
  More than the fact their life was saved.
  If you’ve just been brought back from the brink of ending your life, is your first thought going be “my goodness that cost 2 grand our health system is fucked”.
  Cos I wouldn’t. I’d be thinking “holy fuck that was close, if I hadn’t called I could be dead now”
- I was with you until the end. Speaking about mental health should always be encouraged.

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