Australian couple has $1 million hospital bill after baby born in Canada

[Teh One Who Knocks]

By The Canadian Press | Associated Press


SYDNEY - Australia's foreign affairs minister is looking into the case of a Sydney couple stuck with a million dollar hospital bill after their daughter was born in Vancouver last August.

John Kan and Rachel Evans had taken out travel insurance and extra cover for Evans' pregnancy without realizing the policy would not cover birth or the baby.

They were about to return to Australia after their B.C. vacation when Evans went into premature labour at the airport.

Piper Kan stayed in the neo-natal ward of the B.C. Women’s Hospital and Health Centre for three months and the bill ended up being about one-million dollars.

Australian media reports the couple negotiated a payment plan with the hospital at about $300 a month, which would take 278 years to pay off.

Evans tells the Herald Sun newspaper they don't begrudge the bill because they have a healthy daughter.

"Financially, it’s not so good but you can't put a price on it," she told the newspaper.

It's unclear what support Australia’s foreign ministry could offer, but the Herald says the country's Dept. of Health and Ageing will reportedly investigate whether it could pay the bill.

Evans said she is grateful for any help the government might be able to provide.

"We don't feel our mistake was someone else's responsibility but obviously it is quite a large amount so any assistance we can get would be helpful.”

Australian residents can get treatments deemed medically necessary under reciprocal agreements with 11 countries, but Canada is not one of those countries.

[Godfather]

My mom works for a company that bills the BC medical services plan so doctors get paid... people come here all the time and rack up bills they'll never pay. :roll: They try and chase them a bit but often it does no good, you can't squeeze blood from a stone. I guess the alternative is we do what our cousins to the south do, and demand a credit card or proof of insurance before treatment. Neither systems are perfect that's for sure.

People should know better. Travel insurance obviously doesn't cover pregnancy, how is that 'insurance'? It's neither sudden nor accidental. It was utterly stupid to come here while 7 month pregnant.

[redred]

Piper Kan was born last Aug. 6, when mother Rachel Evans went into labour in her 26th week at Vancouver International Airport, shortly before the couple were scheduled to fly back to Sydney.

The baby girl weighed less than a kilogram when she was born by emergency C-section at BC Children's and Women's Hospital and spent 90 days in neonatal intensive care with breathing and lung problems, at a cost of $8,120 per day.

Piper's care also incurred the costs of numerous specialists and consultants. The couple also had to pay $550 for the ambulance from the airport to the hospital and another $3,000 for the birth.

Rachel Evans says they went out of their way to find a travel insurer that covered pregnancy up to the 27th week and paid extra for pregnancy coverage, which included "unexpected events associated with pregnancy."

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/story/2012/03/26/bc-australian-baby-bill.html

the baby came a lot earlier than they were hoping for

[Godfather]

That's like saying a person with diabetes fell into a comma a lot earlier than they were hoping for :lol: You have to expect there could be a problem. The insurance broker in Australia fucked them by not mentioning to someone 7 month pregnant there would be no coverage.

According to the Travel insurance companies we represent, that cost would be 40-60% higher again in the US :shock:

[Arkady Renko]

neonatal ICU is about as intensive as care can get, little wonder the bill is monstrous.

[Godfather]

neonatal ICU is about as intensive as care can get, little wonder the bill is monstrous.

That's my girlie's dad's line of work :mrgreen: He's taking us for dinner tonight :dance:

Seriously though, neonatologists are brilliant... no wonder their services are so expensive when you're not insured.

[Richard Cranium]

I guess the alternative is we do what our cousins to the south do, and demand a credit card or proof of insurance before treatment. Neither systems are perfect that's for sure.



I assume you are talking about the US? It doesn't work that way, the ER cannot turn you away regardless of your insurance or financial situation. It doesn't have to be life threatening, you will be treated. You will be asked if you have insurance but will not be asked to provide a credit card.

Continuing care is another topic.

[Arkady Renko]

That's my girlie's dad's line of work :mrgreen: He's taking us for dinner tonight :dance:

Seriously though, neonatologists are brilliant... no wonder their services are so expensive when you're not insured.

what most people don't get is how all the infrastructure in the backgroud is extremely refined and hygiene alone is a bitch to keep up. It's not so much about the brilliant genius doctor who saves the day because he remembers some obscure manoeuvre he saw once during his stint with medecins sans frontieres in Rwanda...it's about running a super tight ship and eliminating all the tiny risks that may kill a patient this fragile.

[Godfather]

I assume you are talking about the US? It doesn't work that way, the ER cannot turn you away regardless of your insurance or financial situation. It doesn't have to be life threatening, you will be treated. You will be asked if you have insurance but will not be asked to provide a credit card.

Continuing care is another topic.

I've heard many different horror stories from clients buying travel insurance. The worst: A client told me they were in a hospital in the US on the East coast and as they waited in the ER someone was banging on a door saying "let me go, I can't afford to be here." While the girl waiting next to them said "I really shouldn't be here either, I can't afford this."

Now this story could be embellished, but I can honestly say it's exactly what I was told.

I'm not trying to be super critical here, obviously our system has flaws too, but that's fucked up.

[Teh One Who Knocks]

So this is how Canada gives healthcare to all citizens....they rape unlucky foreigners who happen to need medical care :-k























:nana:

[Muddy]

:lol:

[Richard Cranium]

I've heard many different horror stories from clients buying travel insurance. The worst: A client told me they were in a hospital in the US on the East coast and as they waited in the ER someone was banging on a door saying "let me go, I can't afford to be here." While the girl waiting next to them said "I really shouldn't be here either, I can't afford this."

Now this story could be embellished, but I can honestly say it's exactly what I was told.

I'm not trying to be super critical here, obviously our system has flaws too, but that's fucked up.

I have never seen or heard of anything like that. I have been involved in the EMS system for 25 years, besides being a patient with frequent flyer miles in hospitals all around the US and Canada.

My step mother is the head honcho at a US hospital up near the Montreal boarder, plenty of Canadian DR's make the commute for work and plenty of Canadian patience for treatment as well.

No system is perfect but I think maybe you have been led astray half truths and exaggerations..

[Acid Trip]

I've heard many different horror stories from clients buying travel insurance. The worst: A client told me they were in a hospital in the US on the East coast and as they waited in the ER someone was banging on a door saying "let me go, I can't afford to be here." While the girl waiting next to them said "I really shouldn't be here either, I can't afford this."

Now this story could be embellished, but I can honestly say it's exactly what I was told.

I'm not trying to be super critical here, obviously our system has flaws too, but that's fucked up.

If you go to the ER, insurance or not, they will keep you from dying. Will you have a bill you probably can't pay? Since the person lacks insurance that's a good possibility.

That said, anyone who is banging on doors or announcing "I can't afford to be here" could have gone somewhere that wasn't the ER!

[Godfather]

So this is how Canada gives healthcare to all citizens....they rape unlucky foreigners who happen to need medical care :-k


:lol: It's a solid plan isn't it?! Only problem is you can't actually collect when someone bails back to India or Asia like the do so often. Gotta get meaner :x

[Godfather]

Will you have a bill you probably can't pay? Since the person lacks insurance that's a good possibility.

That's what gets me... if you're a citizen and make a below average income without benefits, is it financially possible to indemnify your family in most states?! I'm not asking rhetorically, I honestly don't know. We just hear horror stories up here.


I have never seen or heard of anything like that. I have been involved in the EMS system for 25 years, besides being a patient with frequent flyer miles in hospitals all around the US and Canada.


One person told me the first thing the triage nurse asked was if they have a major credit card. You still have to pay your bills if you don't have insurance up here (like this story obviously), but I've just gotten the impression that it's much more cold down there. The stories could well be embellished as all hell too though...

Up here residents can still be stuck with medical bills... but only when you do things that your doctors tell your aren't going to be covered - cosmetic, experimental, dental, extended, etc. Some still chose to place their families in financial ruin by trying treatments from different countries. Others chose to not leave that as their legacy. It's a flawed system, but even if you forget to pay your MSP bill (which is $0/month for low income families)... you can backdate coverage :lol: It MUST be the only insurance in the world where you can do that.

I have a friend in Med school down there, and the class discussed how to deal with cancer patients without insurance. The agreement amongst the American students was to withdraw treatment. The prof asked students who would stop treatment, all but the Canadian med students put up their hand. Again I'm open to this being a bullshit story, but it's what I was told.


My step mother is the head honcho at a US hospital up near the Montreal boarder, plenty of Canadian DR's make the commute for work and plenty of Canadian patience for treatment as well.

It always makes the news when some Government official goes to the US for treatment. The truth is, it's almost statistically irrelevant. The actual statistic is under .5% of Canadians get medical care in the United States per year, and less than a quarter of those .5% actually went to the US for the purposes of medical care.

On a grand scale, we spend 10% of GDP for 70% of healthcare costs covered, to the US's 15% of GDP for 40% of medical costs being covered. That's a huge difference if you're just strictly talking numbers. I think that one speaks volumes, although I know some won't agree. Canadians do pay a lot of taxes, that's for sure.

It's interesting to me in my work that travel insurance to the US is more expensive than to anywhere else in the world. Our health care will pay claims to the US for what it would cost up here, but our Insurer tells us a 5 day hospital stays can can cost $80k more down south. Not sure how that's possible.

Still not to say our system is better at all... there are plenty of stats to show wait times and cancer mortality and some other treatment is worse here, and it's easier in some respects for Canada because we're dealing with less immigrant and obesity issues that I've read bog down the US system. Really interesting topic though, seems like one circumstance where both sides are happier where they stand whenever we debate here.

[Acid Trip]

That's what gets me... if you're a citizen and make a below average income without benefits, is it financially possible to indemnify your family in most states?! I'm not asking rhetorically, I honestly don't know. We just hear horror stories up here.

Its possible but it really depends on the person. Some people look at a 5k doctors bill and immediately say "I'm not paying that" and ignore it till it comes to back to bite them. Some people get a 5-10k doctors bill and decide they'd rather take a bankruptcy than pay it back.

We have programs available for people who live at/under the poverty line. You'd think we didn't help poor people at all with all the bullshit the media spews.

Every minimum wage job I ever had offered some kind of medical care. I always declined because I didn't want $50 to 200 dollars taken out of every paycheck. If you decline health coverage and then get a $10k-100k ER bill that's on you. You made your bed now sleep in it!