Denise Lee Porter

Shortly after we purchased our discount plan we were blessed with the opportunity to move into our dream home. This meant we had to prep our existing home for sale, prep the new home for occupancy, pack up and un-pack. This required driving 23 miles back and forth every day for 2 months during the summer.

Towards the end of the process my husband began to experience chest pains. We were in the middle of a heat wave and he is a young, healthy guy – so he did not believe that it was important to tell me what was going on. Which begs the question: why are men so afraid of doctors and pain?

Well one night it got too much for him and we had to rush to the emergency room . They kept him all night and most of the next day, they couldn’t determine if it was a heart attack or an inflammation of the lining around his heart (When the pericardium becomes inflamed then there is more fluid build up, and swelling occurs. This makes the pericardium rub up against the heart causing pain.).

We left with drugs , a prescription for more drugs and a follow-up appointment. To our dismay, we discovered that every doctor that walked into the room billed us separately, and the hospital also billed us ($14,000 for a one night stay?), and the radiologist billed us, and I think there was a bill for toilet paper!

The total cost for his one night stay was well over $20,000, yikes! And here we were with only a discount plan that hospitals do not accept. Fortunately, our plan also includes a hospital advocacy program. As soon as the bills started rolling in I faxed the bills over to the group that does the advocacy and over the next few months they were able to get all of the doctors and other providers to agree to discount the original costs by as much as 50%.

Visit to the emergency room: $14,000

Various fees room doctors: $6000+

Having my husband around at a final cost 0f $10,000 : Absolutely Priceless