Cost-awareness anecdote: Blood Test Surprise (contest finalist)

The following anecdote is from Brad Wright, a graduate student from Durham, NC

In the spring of 2005, the sinus infection returned. I awoke severely congested with a pounding forehead and pain around my eyes that grew worse when I bent to tie my shoes. The feeling was familiar. Two years earlier, I had similar symptoms, but was uninsured and endured a miserable week with nothing but over-the-counter medication. Now they were back.

Fortunately, when I started graduate school, my father insisted that I have health insurance. As a healthy 24 year old, I didn’t see the need, but he agreed to foot the bill for a high-deductible insurance policy to cover me in the event of catastrophic illness. Except for four physician office visits subject only to a $35 co-payment, my policy offered no benefits until I spent $3,000 out of my own pocket. With my sinuses throbbing, I knew I needed to use one of those visits. Overwhelmed by the list of “in-network” providers on the insurer’s website, I picked an internist based on convenience—his practice was located in a medical complex near my home.

Arriving for my appointment, I checked in and presented my insurance card to the receptionist. “Your visit today will be $35,” said the woman behind the desk. I was relieved to hear that my coverage was working as promised. A nurse ushered me to an exam room, where the physician promptly entered, half-heartedly listened to my complaint, and confidently asserted that I did not have a sinus infection because I had no fever. I wanted to say “Really? Mind handing me a tissue so that I can show you what’s been coming out of my head?” but resisted the urge. Instead, I clarified that fever or no, I didn’t feel well, and believed my sinuses were the culprit. At this, the internist lost patience. He ordered some lab work and a sinus CT scan to rule out infection, and said that I could have everything done downstairs.

Despite my $35 office visit, I knew my insurance wouldn’t cover anything else until I met my deductible, so I needed to find out the cost of the CT scan. Doing so was much more difficult than I expected. Admissions didn’t know the cost, so they called the imaging department. Imaging had no idea, and threw it back to admissions where, after much searching, a big black binder full of prices was located in a cabinet, alongside packets of coffee creamer, some paper clips, and a couple of dried up ink pens. The sinus CT would cost roughly $900, which I could not afford. I headed instead to the lab to get my blood drawn, not knowing that I was about to make a costly mistake.

I worked as a phlebotomist during college, so I knew that lab tests were expensive, but that most insurers negotiated discounted rates that were only a fraction of the sticker price. Besides, the lab work was routine—a comprehensive metabolic panel and complete blood count—so I didn’t think to ask how much it would cost. My mistake was assuming that the lab was in-network, because the in-network internist I had just seen worked in the same building and referred me to the lab.

A month later, the bad news came in the mail. The lab was out-of-network, and I owed $478. While this wasn’t the five-figure medical bill many families face, everything is relative. For me, a graduate student living almost entirely on borrowed money, the bill changed how I bought groceries, socialized with friends, and commuted to school. For six months, I fought to scrape together enough money to make monthly payments. The experience, while costly, taught me a lot about our fragmented health care system, how little patients or providers know about the real cost of health care, and how hard it is for patients to make price-based decisions when the system isn’t designed with that in mind.

I had learned my lesson. Later, when a dermatologist put me on medication requiring monthly blood tests, I took out the yellow pages, looked up laboratories, and dialed the phone. “I’m uninsured,” I said (not far from the truth given my coverage) “and I need to have a lipid panel and a liver function test. How much will this cost?” Some labs knew, and some labs didn’t, and the answers varied widely. Needless to say, I chose the least expensive option. Making the decision was easy, getting the information on which to base the decision was—and is—the real challenge.

Cost-awareness anecdote: From Pain to Poverty (contest finalist)

The following anecdote is from Dr. Steve Sanders (Twitter: @spsanders), a primary care doctor from Tulsa, OK.

“What am I going to do now Doc?” asked Mike, a down on his luck, 29 year–old recently unemployed truck driver, as he handed me his hospital bill.

Mike was seen at our local emergency department on a Friday evening with complaints of indigestion. Earlier that day he and his wife Susan celebrated their second anniversary by splitting a store bought pepperoni pizza. Mike had just lost his job and his wife, already working two jobs, managed to keep them afloat. When Mike later complained of indigestion, Susan became alarmed. She had just read about the symptoms of heart disease in the local paper. Mike wanted to get some antacids but Susan demanded he go to the hospital. Mike stated he initially protested, but when it came to his health he looked to his wife for advice.

He said he wanted her to drive him to the hospital and told me his wife wouldn’t hear of it. “We’re going to call 911, she told him. “You could die on the way to the hospital.” Now, Mike admitted, that made him scared and he quickly agreed. Fifteen minutes later he was on a gurney rolling through the double doors of the emergency department.

Physical assessment by the emergency resident physician came quickly followed by an EKG, chest x-ray, CT scan of the chest (“they said I might have had a blood clot”), and lab, specifically including cardiac enzymes. Mike said his only complaint was it took over five hours before he heard any news.

“Everything looks good,” said the resident. “Let me run all this past my attending and see if we can get you home.” Mike said by then his pain had been gone for hours and he relaxed by receiving the good news. When the resident returned, however, Mike said he knew something was wrong.

“Sorry Mike, but my attending thinks you need to stay for a chest pain evaluation, “ stated the resident with no hint of emotion. “Your first cardiac enzyme was normal, but he thinks you need another evaluation in six hours followed by a stress test, “ he continued.

Mike said he tried to protest. “But everything was normal? Can’t I just see my primary physician later,” he quizzed the resident. He said the resident looked down at his chart seemingly trying to choose his words and said, “Can’t be too careful with chest pain.” With that, the resident physician disappeared, followed by the nurse who quickly added insult to his non-injury.

“We don’t do stress tests on the weekends,” she explained. “The Hospitalist will need to keep you until Monday at the earliest.” Mike said upon hearing this news he protested, again wanting to just go home.

“Then you’ll have to sign out AMA (against medical advice). We can’t be responsible if you go home and have a heart attack and die,” she quickly added.

Mike said by then he was too tired to protest. The thought of dying at home also had him upset. He stated when he told his story to the Hospitalist, she just shook her head and laughed. “They just don’t want to get sued,” she explained. “We get these normal cases all the time. We try to tell them this can be handled on an outpatient basis, but what can we do?” She laughed again, which Mike took as a good sign he was really okay.

He left the hospital the following Tuesday—the heart scan machine was broken on Monday—with a clean bill of health and a diagnosis of “gastric reflux,” which I explained was the indigestion he first described.

I looked at his hospital bill. Charges for everything from the ambulance ride to the emergency department evaluation and eventual hospitalization with cardiac stress tests came to just under $11,000. This number was circled at the bottom of the bill with several question marks in red ink written to the side by Mike’s wife.

“We don’t have any money,” Mike explained. “Susan’s insurance won’t cover it, since we forgot to put me on her policy when I lost my job,” he continued. “We’re gonna have to file bankruptcy Doc. I don’t know what else we can do.”

What would have been a 15–minute office visit providing reassurance and education to a patient we knew quite well became a 72–hour ordeal by a health system treating a disease and not the patient, trading a patient’s pain for financial poverty. Surely we can do better.

Essay Contest Finalists Announced!

On Labor Day we asked doctors and patients to send us anecdotes that illustrate the importance of cost-awareness in medicine. What was in it for them? A chance to shine a national spotlight on a big problem: doctors and patients have to make decisions in a vacuum, without any information on how those decisions impact what patients pay for care. Also in it for them was a chance to win one of two $1000 prizes.

The launch of the contest was covered in newspapers, radio, TV and dozens of blogs.

Two months later we received 115 submissions from all over the country - New York to California, Texas to North Dakota, Alaska to Oklahoma. According to essay contest judge Dr. Atul Gawande, a surgeon and staff writer at the New Yorker, "These [stories] are powerful just for the sheer volume of unrecognized misery alone."

There were many outstanding submissions, which we ultimately narrowed down to six finalists - three clinicians and three patients.

Clinicians
Dr. Steven Sanders: a primary care doctor from Tulsa, Oklahoma
CNM Tarcia Edmunds-Jehu: a nurse midwife from Boston, Massachusetts
Dr. Grayson Wheatley: a cardiovascular surgeon from Phoenix, Arizona

Patients
Jessa Hartford: an unemployed mother from Sacramento, California
Brad Wright: a graduate student from Durham, North Carolina
Kelly Cheramy: the wife of a man with a chronic illness from McFarland, Wisconsin
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Leading up to the $1000 prize winner announcement on December 15, we will publish each of their stories separately for you to read on our blog. Starting after January 1st, we will also publish 52 of the additional outstanding stories we received - there will be a new story here every week until 2012.

In the mean time, on behalf of the Costs of Care team, I would like to thank everyone who sent us their stories, our esteemed judges, and our contest sponsors. Stay tuned!

(Image courtesy of Dr. S. Ifran Ali, a physician from Tampa, FL who submitted a photograph of his daughter with his entry to our contest)