Time to Pay the Bills

Although it was an enjoyable hospital stay, I knew eventually it would come time to pay the bills. And I knew that it wouldn’t be cheap, either. Between the beautiful hospital room (not being sarcastic; really it was an awesome room!), the plethora of drugs they put me on, and the numerous people who came to jab a needle in my arm and draw blood from my body every four hours, I knew it would be expensive.

The other day I finally got the bill.

My favorite part of looking at any of my EOBs (explanation of benefits) is the overall total before insurance is kicked in. It’s always fun to see how much stuff really costs and whether or not the insurance my employer pays for is actually worth its salt. Turns it, it’s not too frickin’ bad!

Overall my stay, including all the meds and other fun stuff, was $17,091. Yes, that’s a shit ton of money. Sell a kidney on eBay type money. If I didn’t have insurance, it would be fake-my-own death money. Thankfully, I have really good insurance. Working for a hospital, I kind of have to, right?

My total out of pocket: $1,545. Granted that’s still a nice chunk of change, but in the end it’s only 9% of the total charges. Much better to manage than nearly 20 grand! And my diabetes education class was also free. WOO!

Daily Summary

The best part of my day today was getting my tooth examined. Now that the infection is out of the way and I finally remembered to call the dentist, I was able to get in to get evaluated. Because the past month or so haven’t been bad enough for me, I learned today that I get to have a tooth extracted. Basically my biggest fear when it comes to my mouth is getting something yanked out of it. Now it’s time to face that fear… with the help of laughing gas. Lots and lots of laughing gas.

Because of where my appointment fell today, I didn’t think having a lunch was the best of ideas. And I was a bit paranoid about having a smelly mouth when the dentist was poking around in there. Knowing I had to eat, I thought that a couple of apples would do the trick. Nothing like two carb choices to jack up the ol’ blood sugar. I was actually encouraged by the post-lunch numbers. Just on-target today!! I think I’ll skip lunch and just do two apples every day. Nothing that I can see going wrong with that plan at all, right?!?

Today’s Numbers