Hospital bills new father $40 to hold his son.

[the game]

A father in Utah said he and his wife had a good laugh after they received an itemized bill from a hospital charging them $39.35 for skin-to-skin contact with their newborn son.

Ryan Grassley, 37, posted a photo of the bill to Reddit and said he had requested it after his son Samuel was born on Sept. 4 through a C-section, according to the New York Daily News.

Grassley said he and his wife Lidia, 35, had a good experience with the staff at the local hospital and were not posting the bill to complain but because they thought it was funny.

"We had a very positive experience during the birth of our son, and the hospital and staff were great throughout the entire process," he said.

In his Reddit thread, Grassley said the nurse in the operating room let him hold his son while Samuel was resting on Lidia's chest. He said the nurse even grabbed his camera to take a couple of photos for them.

To keep the humor going, Grassley also started a GoFundMe account to reach his goal of $39.35 to pay off the fee.

According to the page, it only took seven people within 10 hours of posting the account to reach his goal. He joked that any money he receives after reaching the goal will go toward a vasectomy "because I never want to go through these sleepless new baby nights again."

In addition to their newborn son, the couple also has a 2-year-old daughter named Sofia, according to the New York Daily News.

Studies have shown that skin-to-skin contact with the parents and an infant immediately after birth can contribute to the overall health of the baby in a positive way.

Is this normal for hospitals to do? To make you pay to hold your own kid?

http://abc7.com/society/father-says-...h-son/1539548/

[zEmini]

Is this normal for hospitals to do? To make you pay to hold your own kid?

http://abc7.com/society/father-says-...h-son/1539548/

Doesn't sound legal but hospitals charge you for everything because they can.

[zenkai]

Is this normal for hospitals to do? To make you pay to hold your own kid?

http://abc7.com/society/father-says-...h-son/1539548/

Nope, I would fight it.

[Bakis]

They pick up liability funds wherever they can come up with bogus reasons

[Darsithis]

As a nurse explained, in order to do the contact they require an additional person on staff, which is a cost, so they charge for it.

I suppose in the grand scheme of things, the $40 is trivial compared to the thousands+ the birth cost.

[kail]

They are a business, so yeah.

[Deleted]

As a nurse explained, in order to do the contact they require an additional person on staff, which is a cost, so they charge for it.

What does the extra staff do? Catch the baby if someone drops it?

[Sorshen]

What does the extra staff do? Catch the baby if someone drops it?

Maybe they're really short on staff, so a person catering to one patient really ruins their schedule? Anyway, it's a bit fucked up.

[Phookah]

As a nurse explained, in order to do the contact they require an additional person on staff, which is a cost, so they charge for it.

I suppose in the grand scheme of things, the $40 is trivial compared to the thousands+ the birth cost.

My wife does this exact job, they don't usually charge for skin to skin contact. It's actually highly encouraged as it helps parent-child bonding... So seeing a charge for it is a bit whacked.

[JohnBrown1917]

Gotta hike up the price for the insurance companies.


...If somebody does not have insurance, or the insurance does not cover it however.. well.. tough luck.

[Independent voter]

Someone on reddit said they charge because it's part of the process that documents all the steps were fallowed. If they let the dad hold the baby for example it documents that the baby was safe enough at that point that the dad could hold it.

Legal stuff.

[Spectral]

I'd be much more concerned with the $13K total charges (although only ~$7500 was actually billed) and the lack of CPT coding on the sheet shown.

[Endus]

The wonders of for-profit health care, in a nutshell.

- - - Updated - - -

Someone on reddit said they charge because it's part of the process that documents all the steps were fallowed. If they let the dad hold the baby for example it documents that the baby was safe enough at that point that the dad could hold it.

Legal stuff.

Even if that WERE the case, you could use a "charge" of $0.00. I've seen such plenty of times on bills at various locations when something's comped or there'd a coupon or whatever. Or even $0.01, if some arcane requirement exists that there be actual money involved. But $39.95?

[Tijuana]

Gotta hike up the price for the insurance companies.


...If somebody does not have insurance, or the insurance does not cover it however.. well.. tough luck.

I love this. So, even when presented with a case of hospitals over charging, you still have your target on the insurance industry, which makes FAR less profit than the hospitals do. This is why Obamacare fails; we are lazer focused on the insurance companies 5% or w/e profit (its a shit stock to buy), but nobody cares about where the actual charges originate.

[Deleted]

The wonders of for-profit health care, in a nutshell.

Actually this is not even a for-profit problem, its a credit problem.
Since a lot of people cant actually pay their bills, other people need to subsidize those people, hence bullshit padding charges and inflated prices for MRI's for instance.

[sciarc]

As has already been explained, the charge is for the extra nurse that needs to be present during the skin-to-skin. They are not charging the parents just to hold the baby. Unfortunately the line-item description doesn't accurately reflect this. If the line-item read "Extra nurse for XX minutes", there wouldn't be any clickbait to fall for.

[Endus]

I love this. So, even when presented with a case of hospitals over charging, you still have your target on the insurance industry, which makes FAR less profit than the hospitals do. This is why Obamacare fails; we are lazer focused on the insurance companies 5% or w/e profit (its a shit stock to buy), but nobody cares about where the actual charges originate.

Pretending that they're not related is pretty silly. The reason to focus on the insurance companies is to try and see if the market will fix things through competition. I think it's clear (and it's unsurprising to me) that it doesn't.

Hospitals have to use these charges because THEY need to make profits, too, which is ridiculous. And they're required to treat people who can't pay, for humanitarian reasons, meaning they have a fairly significant sunk cost issue they need to offset with higher pricing. This leads to them jacking up prices as high as they can go, and again, in a free market for-profit system, it's only "bad" to jack up prices if it means people avoid using your services as a result. Something that's just not likely to happen, when the "service" is health care. This is why market solutions just don't work well in this sector. Because if you can produce a pill that cures cancer for $5 in production costs, you can charge $10,000 for each pill, because your goal isn't to cure people's cancer, it's to make as much money of cancer-sufferers as you can.

[Kapadons]

I love this. So, even when presented with a case of hospitals over charging, you still have your target on the insurance industry, which makes FAR less profit than the hospitals do. This is why Obamacare fails; we are lazer focused on the insurance companies 5% or w/e profit (its a shit stock to buy), but nobody cares about where the actual charges originate.

Hospitals gouge people that CAN pay because they are forced to treat people that CAN'T pay. If public or county run hospitals weren't pure dogshit, I'd be more of an advocate for them.

[Deleted]

Because if you can produce a pill that cures cancer for $5 in production costs, you can charge $10,000 for each pill, because your goal isn't to cure people's cancer, it's to make as much money of cancer-sufferers as you can.

yes, the second pill cost 5 dollars - but the first pill costs 5 billion.

[Tijuana]

Pretending that they're not related is pretty silly. The reason to focus on the insurance companies is to try and see if the market will fix things through competition. I think it's clear (and it's unsurprising to me) that it doesn't.

Hospitals have to use these charges because THEY need to make profits, too, which is ridiculous. And they're required to treat people who can't pay, for humanitarian reasons, meaning they have a fairly significant sunk cost issue they need to offset with higher pricing. This leads to them jacking up prices as high as they can go, and again, in a free market for-profit system, it's only "bad" to jack up prices if it means people avoid using your services as a result. Something that's just not likely to happen, when the "service" is health care. This is why market solutions just don't work well in this sector. Because if you can produce a pill that cures cancer for $5 in production costs, you can charge $10,000 for each pill, because your goal isn't to cure people's cancer, it's to make as much money of cancer-sufferers as you can.

What are you talking about? Basicaly what you are saying is, in order to get car insurance cheaper, the only way to do that is to make car insurance companies compete. But, like heath care, the insurer is only profiting of a small part of the total bill. It makes MUCH more sense to try and get the price of REPAIRS down.

This is why Obamacare is shit, and this is why I am a free market Milton Friedman capitalist, who supports single payer.