$11 for ‘brief emotion’? The hidden charges of US healthcare are utterly enraging

A woman tweeted her invoice for mole removal in a US hospital – showing one of the many small, insidious charges that add up to millions each year

Words are cheap, but emotion will cost you. An American woman recently found that out the hard way when she went in for a routine medical checkup that included a mole removal, and ended up with a hefty invoice that included an $11 (£8) fee for “brief emotion”. The Virginia-based woman, who goes by the name Midge, or @mxmclain online, tweeted a copy of her invoice last week. “Mole removal: $223”, she said in the viral tweet. “Crying: extra.”

To be fair, @mxmclain didn’t get charged for crying. “Brief emotion” is short for brief emotional assessment. What happened was probably something like this: in the middle of Midge’s checkup, her healthcare provider wanted to ask her some routine questions about her mental state. “Can I ask you a few things?” her doctor might have said. “Of course,” Midge might have replied, as anyone would. She wouldn’t have realised this short Q&A was a service she was expected to pay extra for.

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from The Guardian https://ift.tt/3iVafoP

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