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by staringispolite 3843 days ago
An error that large may be rare, but the overall experience of massive/unexpected financial load is fairly common via my experience hearing from customers (full disclosure: I founded a medical tourism startup called Emissary two years ago: https://www.emissarymed.com)

We talk to people all the time who don't have insurance (20-30M last time I checked), don't have dental insurance (~150M), or whose insurance comes with coverage caps as low as $1K-$2K that render insurance effectively useless for them in large operations. Most of the time, customers we talk to actually don't even get as far as the author did, because they can't afford the estimate, let alone the risk of over-shooting it. They just avoid getting treatment (and often get worse in the meantime).

The trick then is how to find a doctor you can both afford AND trust. If you'll excuse the plug, we started Emissary to solve that when a friend's mother had this problem. Our mission is to help connect people to high-quality options they can afford, regardless of where they live in the world.

1 comments

Love it.