My Bill review: hospital charges 1

To Whom It May Concern,

I am writing this letter to appeal a bill that I have received due to a hospital visit. On the evening of January 8, 2018 my oldest son Peyton Hotchkiss age 15 broke out in a rash on various parts of his body. He had been running fever and we were controlling it with medication. Prior to the evening of January 8th he seemed fine outside of the fever. We were not made aware of the rash until that evening. Unfortunately, when my husband attempted to find a local urgent care center they were all closed. We were very concerned and had no other option but to go to the Baylor Trophy Club ER. A flu and strep test were done both of which came back negative. They decided to send off a sample for culture. The Doctor himself was not even in our room but maybe 5 minutes and that's putting it generously. We were sent home to await
the culture results. We were told that we would have results in 72 hrs. However, I never received that call. I then attempted for a week + to track those results down. I contacted the hospital, the hospital lab and a separate lab that they sometimes use. No one knew where the results were and at that point they were useless anyway. Heaven forbid my son had come down with something serious. So in other words, the culture was completely useless. Some weeks later I recieved a bill from the hospital for 628.90 and on March 19, 2018 we paid that bill in full. We are now being billed for the physician portion of the visit. The portion of that bill that we are responsible for is 1, 433.70. Therefore, in total we would end up paying over 2k for a simple strep and flu test. I do realize that a visit to the hospital is more expensive and completely expected. However, 2k is absolutely aggregious. We have literally been charged the second highest rate that the hospital charges. I absolutely with out a doubt feel that these charges are unfair at best. Criminal is a better description. I have also contacted my insurance company and will be sending an appeal to them as well.

Sincerely,
Erica Hotchkiss