Code Blue by Debra E. Blaine

Author:Debra E. Blaine [Blaine, Debra E.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781733795579
Publisher: Warren Publishing
Published: 2019-08-25T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter 33

After EMS left, Tobi went in to see Jenna in room two, a self-pay patient who had been out of work for the last several months after a bicycle accident. She was a single parent and was unable to afford COBRA insurance anymore, so her kids were now covered on Healthy New York, but she had nothing for herself. She was there for bronchitis and was wheezing with every breath.

“I’m going to give you a breathing treatment to open up your lungs and then I’ll get you some medications to use at home. I’ll see if we have any samples of inhalers in the back,” Tobi said.

“No! I can’t afford anything more than the fee I already paid, please! That’s why I haven’t come in sooner,” she said. “The kids need boots and gloves, and I can’t waste money like that.”

Tobi was floored. “I think it’s only twenty-five bucks, let me check.”

“Twenty-five dollars is grocery money, you don’t understand. I already paid $110 to be seen and I have no more. But if you have some samples, I would very much appreciate that.”

Tobi stood frozen for a moment. Jenna’s oxygen saturation was only ninety-four percent. She was compensating for now based on her general good health, but that wouldn’t last.

“You know what? Just take the breathing treatment. I’ll ask the manager to waive the fee; if they won’t, I’ll pay for it myself.” She walked out of the office before Jenna could even respond.

Travis looked at her when she asked Esther to set up the nebulizer. “Will you get in trouble for that? She will get billed, you know.”

“Then I will pay for it. Geez, it’s twenty-five bucks. I spent more than that on dinner last Friday night. I can’t let her walk out of here like that. You know, it wasn’t that long ago that physicians routinely treated a certain percentage of patients as charity. We expected to. It’s only now that we have to answer to some corporate money monger who needs to pad his pockets with every possible dollar that we can’t make compassionate decisions on our own anymore.”

It took a half hour, but ultimately, Tobi got permission to waive the fee as a “one time courtesy.” It felt like a warning not to try this again, but at least she got that. Maybe she had shamed corporate by saying she had already started the treatment and would pay for it herself if need be. Geez, the medication in the nebulizer had to cost all of four or five dollars, maybe less, and the nebulizer itself had been paid for a hundred times over. It was less than $100 brand new.

Not to say that they should treat patients for free. Even before she worked in corporate medicine, Tobi had found that some people tended to think they were entitled to free care even at a private facility. Even when they had just dropped seventy-five bucks on a manicure, they’d come in complaining about their fifteen dollar copay.

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