Friday, January 12, 2007

Hospital Bill #1

This year we managed to hit the medical trifecta - Josh's appendictomy, my delivery and Wren's surgery - and will actually qualify to deduct medical expenses on our tax return for the first (and hopefully the last) time. We also get to pay the family out of pocket maximum which sounds like a real bargain at $6000.

The reason it sounds cheap is that we have received the first of the bills for Wren's hospitalization and surgery. The bill from Children's (not all inclusive yet) is $131,587.72. We have not yet seen the bill from Swedish for the 3 and a bit days in the NICU there or my my delivery. While the Children's bill is a ton of money its less than I expected based on other figures I have seen. Looking at the deail, the majority was for Wren's post-surgery and recovery care in "room / bed charges" which were $68,820. The other big charges were pharmacy and labs which totalled over $30K.

If the surgeon could perform in a vacuum heart surgery would be a real bargain!

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