'That isn't the real price'

A simple social media post sharing the story behind a hospital bill for a child’s emergency room visit must have “struck a nerve” with other families, Samaritan Ministries member Joe Benson said recently.

As of mid-July, Joe’s June 10 X.com account of the billing surprise had more than 8.8 million views, 38,000 likes, 6,900 reposts, 6,100 bookmarks, and 3,900 comments.

“Clearly, people have felt similar frustrations, but it just connected with people more than anything,” said Joe, founder of a Texas-based website design and marketing service.

The crisis started when Van, the 3-year-old son of Joe and his wife, Fran, started exhibiting signs of appendicitis after the family had assisted in a community fund-raiser on an early June morning.

“He had been mostly fine and is not very dramatic, but he hunched over like I’ve never seen before and told me that he had a really bad belly ache,” Joe said. “From that point forward for probably two and a half to three hours, all he wanted to do was be in his mom’s arms.”

They took him to an urgent care, where they were encouraged to get him to an ER.

At the hospital, a doctor came in, pushed on Van’s belly a little bit, and said he would order some tests to rule out strep.

“After about 30 or 45 minutes of us sitting there, my son belched loudly for an extended period of time, and like a light switch immediately went back to his old self,” Joe said. “He went back to talking, goofing around, playing around. We knew immediately that he was fine.”

The Bensons canceled the ultrasound and signed Van out of the hospital.

Several days later, they had another scare when a bill for $4,179 arrived in the mail.

“I called the billing department and told them I was part of a health care sharing ministry, cash-pay,” Joe said.

The representative told Joe if he paid immediately, the bill would only be around $685.

“It was outrageous,” Joe said. “I was upset at the original price for the service we had been provided.

“It taught me honestly that we have serious health care issues, that the marriage between the hospitals, the care facilities, and insurance companies, and the way that prices are manipulated to keep everybody happy, are a large driver of costs going up.

“If no one ever does pay that price, or it’s not the real price, they shouldn’t show that price.”

The incident also serves as a reminder to health care sharing members and everyone else to heed the admonition of the late Marshall Allen when it comes to health care charges: “Never pay the first bill.”

Joe Benson didn’t.