A young woman who was prescribed an opioid for pain relief while recovering from surgery was charged more than $17000 for a urine test to confirm she wasn’t abusing it.
I wouldn't mind that charge if it was explicitly mentioned before hand.
"We need to issue you with a urine test to ensure you aren't abusing this drug"
"Erm, but you know how much you are giving me."
"Yeah, but we still need to test or we might get into legal trouble."
"OK, whatever"
"It'll cost you $17,000"
"I'm not paying $17,000 to cover your ass."
"Then you can't have the drugs."
"OK."
What's weird is the way the insurance works here. When I worked in insurance a similar conversation might have gone like this
"We recovered your vehicle after it was immobilised after an accident. We needed to perform radiological tests to make sure it didn't contain hazardous levels of Uranium, Plutonium etc. That'll be 500,000, please."
"Take it up with my insurance"
"Hey insurer - that'll be 500,000"
"We're paying you 350"
"But the radiological tests cost...."
"That's your business, we don't think they were necessary. We're paying you 350 for the vehicle recovery."
"We'll take you to court."
"Fine. You can issue proceedings to the following address...."
"I mean, we'll sue your insured."
"The loss incurred by this incident is ours, not theirs. You'll be trying to extract half a million from a large insurer with more funds than you. The 350 is on it's way. Goodbye"
It seems insane that this doesn't happen in the USA. I hear competition is much less significant there, so maybe they don't care too much since they'll be compensated through higher premiums anyway and there are fewer - if any - competitors to undercut them.
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