Health care costs

I'm not going to get on a tirade about the cost of health care. But let's just say that I'm not too happy about it right now.

I am very blessed that we have excellent insurance through Popeye's company and without it, who knows what we would do. We aren't a family who normally has a lot of medical bills, but I had something going on which I've been dealing with for over 2 years causing me a lot pain. I did something about it. I had some outpatient surgery on July 27.

The doctor fee was over $2000. With insurance and network discounts that they give him (or however that works), our portion was $168. But can I ask why no one at the hospital or doctor's office told me that we would be getting a bill from the anesthesiologist AND the hospital? I just didn't think about it and neither did Popeye. We had received a letter saying that we had to pay the $168 before X date when I did my pre-op visit. Okay, that's fine, we did it. Nothing else was said about having to pay anything up front to the hospital or that we would be getting a bill in the future from the hospital. We received the bill from the anesthesiologist today....$610 before insurance, $97.60 our part with insurance. YIKES! A couple weeks ago I received an Explanation of Benefits from our insurance company about the hospital bill and about fell OVER! The charges for the hospital for those 5 hours I was there and all they did to me minus the anesthesia was near $10,000. Thank God for our insurance even though I'm NOT pleased with having to pay the 20% that is remaining. That amount came in a bill to us today.....$655.

The following is the conversation between Popeye and myself:
He said, "I thought we paid it already." Me: "Yeah, I did too until I got the insurance explanation; that was the drs. fee." Him: "How much is the hospital?" Me: "$655. I guess that's better than the $10K that it cost without insurance." Him: "I need to take you back."