Sticker Shock

My heart must not be in too bad a shape because I didn’t keel over after I looked at the Medicare paperwork I just got. The day after I take my chemo regimen, I receive an injection of Pegfilgastrim-cbqv to kick start my body to make more white blood cells after chemo has trashed my immune system, so I don’t get an opportunistic infection. The hospital billed Medicare $26,065.40 for one (1) injection of it. Yep. Medicare did not pay (anywhere near) the full amount and I can’t figure from the paperwork I’ve got how much my VA insurance paid, but I’ve just gotten a bill from the hospital for $752 bucks for March.

I’m not blaming the hospital. The hospital has to pay what BigPharma charges them. Like $7,780.22 a pop for the newer one of my chemo drugs. And my kind of cancer is relatively cheap to treat (around $84K a month), so you can imagine the financial reality those poor “burn pile” vets are facing who ended up with more rare forms of cancer from inhaling those toxic fumes from the burn piles in Afghanistan.

UPDATE: After trying since I got home from my hydration this morning (and holding for over an hour) to get through to the hospital’s billing office (I was 49th in the queue at one point), I left a call-back and they just called me back. Turns out the reason I got such a bill from them was because they only billed Medicare for that “round” and didn’t bill the VA insurance. The nice lady said they would submit to the VA and hopefully, that will sort things out. It also explains why I couldn’t find any VA paperwork for that period of time.