Dr Heady was pleased with the progress the foot is making but indicated we have several more months left before Ron will be healed. He implied that the wound vac was a more economical method of treating the wound than a skin flap would have been. The skin flap would have taken muscle and tissue from Ron’s abdomen and transplanted it to his foot. That does sound hideous, but could it really have been more expensive than the wound vac – or a slower healing process? When I told the doctor how much the wound vac was to rent he was amazed. The man had no idea how expensive it was.
Let’s see…. The wound vac is $134 per day, plus $59 for each dressing change (at 3 per week), so that is $1115 ($59 * 3 + $134 * 7) per week. We’ve had the wound vac since February 22, 2008. That is 32 weeks times $1115, which comes out to $35,680. Ick, Ick, Ick. Insurance pays 80% of “reasonable and customary” on this and we have to pay the rest. I’m not sure at this point how much insurance has paid, how much has been written off, and how much is actually our total. Not all of the charges have been processed but out of what has been processed, our bill is around $2500. I know it will go much, much higher.
That exciting amount does not include the charges for actually changing the dressing. At $108 each, that lovely amount currently would be $10,368. Insurance also has their special formula for what they pay so I don’t know what of that has been written off either. We “only” have to pay $20 for each one (if the referral is done correctly) so that means our amount is $1920.
$1920 + $2500 + whatever is left from existing claims + the “new” totals = more than I want to think about. I’ve already paid a lot of the $1920 because quite a bit of it is paid $20 at a time in the doctor’s offices. I pay home health $100 per month and I am currently paying $100 per month on the wound vac bill.
Yeah, I’m so excited I could just vomit. And people wonder why I’m stressed. I can’t think of a thing to be stressed about.
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