The Official Gym & Fitness Thread

My 3 mile ambulance ride cost me over $1k. They charged me for 6 pairs of gloves at 2 fucking dollars a pair. For fucking latex/nitrile gloves

 

I read NPR's medical bill thread a lot. Some guy in Texas was charged 30k for an 8$ stent. Guy is a teacher making 40k a year. His total surgery as 130k+, for what should have been less than 36K.

Funny story (humor is how I deal with horrible events in life), our hospital's helipad was non-functional for a bit so we had to use part of the parking lot out front. Administration deemed wheeling patients across the parking lot unsafe, so they made people call the ambulance to drive folks from one side of the parking lot to the other... all those people got the same bill you posted for a parking lot ride.

 

Shit is absolutely insane. US healthcare fucking sucks lol.

 

Hey now, I like our care (this is my profession, do you like my posts on this thread? Try asking a foreign doc for the same info), I don't like our billing practices.

 

I don't mind it, yet.... The only major thing I have had done was my appendix removed. Day or two in the hospital plus surgery and all that jazz only cost me $107 out of pocket.

 

Our healthcare billing fucking sucks.

Better?

Edit: now about the foreign doctor thing. Elaborate. Do they not have this type of knowledge? Can they not share it? Also what kind of foreign? Like a doctor from Germany? Or a doctor from like Kenya?

 

Why not just become the CEO of a hospital, make no job cuts and instead take a 99.7% pay cut from $150,000,000 a year to a modest $500,000 a year? (Your $20 million in bonus didn’t include his stock options).

Fuck you could hire more people and open a free clinic while you’re at it.

Actually thats probably what I would do. Work in a shitty system for 10 years. Bank $15 Billion invest all of it (well I’d live for those years on a modest $40k) then turn around and then go buy California and set up a new country called “The Land of Common Sense” and do things the way ethical human beings should run things.

Oh and I’m going to build a wall where I pick up every politician and put them on the other side of it.

The wealth we have in this country is truly incredible. What would make it more incredible is if more of it were in the hands of individuals with generous hearts.

 

The wrong people have the most money... it’s a damn shame.

 

My walking boot was billed to me at $400 and my crutches $600


I could have bought everything on Amazon for. $100.

It is insane!

 

Its probably what you would intend to do until you held a 150 million dollar paycheck... Hello shell companies, time to smuggle some money into Caribbean bank accounts!

 

There are great folks out there with wealth. And I think its sad they don’t get the press they deserve.

Its too overtaken by the bad guys who step in to do injustice.

I like Bill Gates and Warren Buffet and am doing their giving pledge.

 

Only to be Robin Hood and give it all back to the people.

But I’m a ultra wealthy tax bracket supporter so to not be an asshole I have to pay my taxes.

 

Yes, my ego is intact, thank you.

The US health care system has the highest standards in the world. It is extremely difficult for doctors from other countries to pass and maintain board certification in the US because we expect our docs to know everything. No matter a doc's specialty, if they are board certified, they should not miss an important diagnosis of any sort (I'm not a rheumatologist or endocrinologist, yet I know a lot about @PackCon 's Hashi's diagnosis). In other countries this is not the case. For example, we get a lot of docs that come to the US for advanced fellowship training. They have to pass all three of our general medicine board exams to practice here, most of them will take four+ attempts per exam to pass. And I mean barely pass. I'm talking about getting a 190 out of 280. The average for US medical students is 230 on the first exam, around 240 on the second, and close to 220 on the third. The whole exam is on a curve. When you consider how these foreign docs do, they are two to three standard deviations below the average US medical student.

So no, foreign docs will not be able to tell you what I can tell you.

 

So I pose a question. We are the wealthiest nation on earth, with the most innovation, research, and advancements in medicine and pharmaceuticals, and the highest education standards of our physicians

Why do we rank 37 in the world for quality care?

Genuine question. If you were to list just a few succinct reasons what would they be?


This is the question I want to spend my career quantifying and correcting. Goals right?

 

Its because we don't miss diagnoses, and in spite of making lots of diagnoses, we still lack effective treatments. It creates the illusion that we have lots of poor outcomes. It has to do with how the stats are calculated. So, more folks get diagnosed, and no one can do much for these folks other than palliative care, resulting in poorer outcomes on paper. For example, I've told people how to prevent alzheimers and cancer in my previous posts, but I'm willing to bet very few people will make these changes, and then be surprised when we cant help them after they get diagnosed. The other issue is sedentary lifestyles and chronic stress. Both are higher, a lot higher, in the USA. Both of these conditions result in profoundly untreatable disease. Its every person who puts their job so far above their health they routinely pass on basic safety gear and personal care - the American dream. Its basically our culture. This is exactly why I love this forum because I can preach lifestyle to folks, which will make whatever diseases you do get so much easier to treat.

 

I feel like a lot of it has to do with the USA having 300+ million people. A large majority of which are fat, out of shape, have unlimited access to things that make them fat and out of shape, and then have kids who are also fat and out shape...

 

I think thats part of it.
The US ability to address and equalize social determinants of health is very poor. Our infant mortality rate is very poor.
I would also say the vast majority of advancements in technology and drugs don’t actually improve outcomes and can actually harm outcomes.

But its obviously an expansive issue with many causes.

 

Having traveled to many countries I can 100% say that the USA has a very "excess" based culture compared to the rest of the world.

 

My point exactly.

 

Absolutely.
We are a very entitled culture as well.

I’ve seen the same things and whats interesting is... I’ve lived in Europe. Smoking and drinking is the norm. They still are healthier than we are lol