My condolences @silverpurple for the loss of your family friend and wishing your friends speedy recoveries.
Oh my. Ive not been on cc much over the past few days, and popped in, only to see these sad stories. @Creekland - that is so unfair. Am guessing he could get the antibodies test and find he has the antibodies, and perhaps could negotiate with the hospital to discount the bill as they didn’t test for COVID when the symptoms were within their protocol to test. The billing department may or may not have much play with that angle, but if he offered to pay cash, (you could float him the loan) they will discount the bill. Ditto for the Drs. And I do hope the lungs will just take time…
And @silverturtle -so sorry for your loss. Just because the numbers aren’t currently overwhelming the ERs doesn’t mean the pandemic is over. It would be so great if we don’t see another upswing. But if people don’t follow careful social distancing… well, it wouldn’t be a surprise to see hospitalizations increase again.
When he finds out how low he can get it, we’re going to pay the lad’s bill. I’m the one who suggested he see if he could get a test… and his budget doesn’t have that much give, esp when he’s not sure how much longer his job will last. He gets paid to stream games online, but if his parent company needs to make cuts, it makes sense that will be one area they decide they don’t need to pay anyone for.
The hospital’s tally ended up being $1150 after “whatever” discount. Still waiting for dr and x-ray reader charges.
If anyone asks my advice about Covid, stay home if it’s not super bad, aka you think you’re dying, unless somehow you’re positive that free tests will really be “free.”
We were duped into thinking a free test would help them track cases, etc, and he even called them first to ask what he should do. They just wanted money. No free test, but x-rays and whatever else went along with their “you likely have it so stay home” discharge. State numbers stay low, hospital gets some $$. Win, win for them (NC).
I’m sorry, @Creekland—they weren’t up front with your S and your family has to is your of pocket for it. I’d complain to elected officials about this—that’s a big expense for “free testing” and following their advice.
I understand your frustration, but you are leaving out the part about how your son chose not to buy health insurance.
So when you are giving advice, for the rest of us on CC – if we get sick, we’ll go in and get whatever treatment is appropriate, and our insurance will pay according to whatever our plan provides. That might mean copays for many people and potentially meeting a high deductible, but it is also fairly predictable.
Staying home because it is not “super bad” might be the difference between life and death for some, especially as we are learning about so many different manifestations of Covid. So I think the better “advice” would be that people should have insurance.
Given that your son does seem to have ongoing respiratory symptoms, I think that the chest x-ray was probably part of the standard of care. A Covid 19 antibody test doesn’t really tell a doctor whether or not a given patient needs to be hospitalized — and in the past and even now in many parts of the country it can take days to get the test results back. There are literally people who were tested and sent home and died at home before their positive results came back. (Example: https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-03-24/in-louisiana-death-comes-before-coronavirus-test-results)
But a chest x-ray can be read quickly. What if your son had been so sick that he needed to be in the ICU? How is a doctor supposed to make the decision as to whether to admit a sick patient if they can’t use the tools that medical professionals ordinarily use to assess progress of a disease? I’m no medical expert, but I’m pretty sure plenty of young people have been admitted to hospitals during this pandemic precisely because their x-rays showed them as being sicker than they initially appeared.
I don’t think that there is a hospital in this country that would be “up front” with a patients out of pocket during an emergency visit. If there are, I would like to know.
@Creekland, I hope that your son has learned that even that the most healthy can get sick or have an accident, and that is why health insurance is important to have.
Boy, this hits hard. Right now my 25-year-old son is very upset with us that we are “making” him pay $268/month for his part of our family’s health insurance premium. I paid it for him, January through March. It looks like he will be here through July, so he has to pay for only four months. He argues that it’s all a ripoff. I told him we pay many thousands of dollars a year for insurance (health, auto, umbrella, house, and professional liability) and have hardly ever utilized the benefits of it. But that’s part of being an adult. You plan for emergencies! He is just furious now. I told him if he doesn’t want to live here, he can do what he wants.
It’s discouraging that we didn’t raise him better. 
FWIW, if he had bought into health insurance from the time he had switched jobs in Nov it would have cost him far more than $1200. Then he would have had a 20 or 30% copay on top of that. I’m not sure how the additional cost would have been better for his finances.
That said, I’m hoping he gets health insurance - just as we told him back in Feb when we visited. Not all health care is as “cheap.”
The fact that health insurance (or health care) is tough for his budget as a married twenty something working at a job that doesn’t offer it is a sad fact about our country and its priorities.
If all of this mess hasn’t made people stop to realize how screwed up our healthcare system is, I don’t know what will.
I stepped in to report that my 87 year old aunt with Covid is doing great! I just got off the phone with her and she is still asymptomatic. It’s been a week since her positive test, so we’re starting to think maybe she will be okay. The test they used is highly accurate so we know she didn’t have a false positive. And it makes sense that she would have it because so many other people in her Assisted Living home do. It’s nice to know that you can be that old and still maybe not be affected by the virus.
Wonderful news! Thank you for the update!
Good news about your Aunt!
Wow, @calla1, great news! Thanks for the day brightener.
I am sure you raised him well. Don’t forget the brain isn’t fully developed until age 28-30 or so. There’s still hope!
I wish they could replicate her immune system and spread it to everyone out there! Then life really could get back to normal.
I’m really glad you got good news. Perhaps someday they can figure out how to have everyone be asymptomatic by studying such folks.
Dr. Jean Lau Chin, a well respected psychologist and her husband both succumbed to COVID-19.
I didn’t know this man, but his passing has stricken a town near me. An incredibly popular and beloved police officer, 45, died of Covid-19 this week.
“Glen Ridge police officer Charles “Rob” Roberts, a cop so popular in town that people called him “Mr. Glen Ridge” or the “unofficial mayor,” died Monday from the coronavirus. He was 45.”
Leaves a wife and several young children. Very, very sad story.
@jym626, do you have a link for that? Was going to send to D1, but couldn’t find one. Strange.
Got an email from the APA. Does your DD know them?