• gullible@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    This reminded me, does anyone know what the profit margin on ambulance trips are? They must surely be outrageous, but to what degree?

    • Potato_in_my_anus@lemmy.ml
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      1 year ago

      Many years ago I was run over by a car, the charge of the ambulance was $800 USD, the total hospital bill for the 4 hours I was in “observation” was $28,000. I did not have medical insurance at that time.

        • TheHarpyEagle@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Man people always complain about this but it’s super easy to get out of these without paying nearly as much.

          1. Call and ask for an itemized bill.

          2. Get bill 3 months later and see the price hasn’t changed

          3. Call and ask about a payment plan

          3b. Make less than $10k a year so you qualify

          1. Go back in time and get health insurance

          4b. Go back and get health insurance that doesn’t have a $12k deductible

          4c. Go back and get health insurance that has a low deductible and actually covers at least half of your treatment

          1. Maybe just don’t get run over by cars. Or get sick. Or inherit genetic diseases. And for the love of God don’t get hurt on the job.

          It’s really that easy.

    • Dudewitbow@lemmy.ml
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      1 year ago

      Depends on aspect. Its actually not cheap to run an ambulence with the required personel and materials swapped often on call. I believe the main reason why its expemsive is because more often then not, the ambulence isnt paid for so said company takes a loss.

      ambulence costs are also tied down by law in some cities, so for those specific cities, its the city making the cost, not the company.

      For Europe, the bulk of the cost is covered by theor health care, so their out of pocket cost is low. In the U.S, its broken because insurance often denies the ride depending on insurance company and documentation.

      • general_kitten@sopuli.xyz
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        1 year ago

        If we assume an ambulance+equipment costs $500k and has to be replaced every 5 years, requires 4 personnel around the clock to operate with the cost of employing one being $50/h, one ambulance getting an average of 4 calls per day and per call average costs of gas, medicine and other disposable stuff being $300 we are looking at about per ride cost of $1500 so if one ambulance ride costs 12k as per the other comment, we are looking at a profit margin of 87.5% even with these very likely way too high cost estimations.

        • Asafum@feddit.nl
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          1 year ago

          Where are you getting $50/hr? EMTs in the US make taco bell wages. They literally save lives, you can’t be more valuable than that, and yet our wonderful corporations love to exploit the shit out of people who care…

          The general state of things is so goddamn disgusting.