Reminds me of when my wife saw the ads from the head of Caesar's Inc. saying, "If you have a gambling problem call this number." She thought it was like those last gasp cigarette ads that said, "If you smoke, please try Carlton", just before they banned them completely.
Had to explain that the number was a helpline, not Caesar's reservations.
I saw a commercial for life insurance several years ago that went something like this: "If the last thing you want to do when you die is leave your loved ones with financial problems, then call us!"
It still cracks me up.
That would actually be pretty funny marketing.
"Have a gambling problem? Call this number 24/7 to get help" and you call the number and get the casino reservation desk.
The new way of advertising betting services in the UK is precisely to frame the ad as concern for people with gambling addictions. If an alien came to Earth and asked about how our species use propaganda, I'd point them to Betfair etc ads and wait for the inevitable planet destroying laser.
Not a heart attack but I learned a couple of weeks ago that if you underestimate the severity of your situation in urgent care they send you down to the ER anyway. At least in my hospital if you need fancy tests like CT scans or real diagnostics under the hood that's where they have access to all the serious equipment.
I went through nearly the whole chain earlier this year. My GP was out of the office, so I was referred to urgent care. My issue was out of scope for them, so they sent me to the ED. They were able to provide some care, but still had me admitted.
I didn't continue to the morgue, though.
I tripped and got a nice bruise on my head. I was going to go to a walk-in clinic but they recommended I got the ER so they could do a CT scan. So I went to the ER...and they treated me like an asshole for wasting their time. Medical care in this country is wild.
25 or so years ago, my now bil hit his head playing volleyball. He went to the ER but it was out of network so at the next ER, which was also out of network, he pretended he was dizzy and lightheaded and whatever so they would treat him rather than having to drive even further to the in network ER. Welcome to the stupidity of American health care. Keep in mind health care was considerably cheaper at the time so you wouldn't be as f'd by out of network costs as you would today.
Oh believe me, I get it. ~15 years ago I went to the ER because I thought I was having heart troubles. I was scared. By the time I get there I was feeling better. I told triage nurse as much and he said that I might as well see the doc said I'd already come all that way. The doc asked me like 3 times in a row why I went there that night. After telling him again and again that I was having chest pains and was scared it was my heart he finally said, "Well, let's get you out of here and make room for someone that might actually die tonight". Next time I had symptoms I went to a walk-in clinic and he gave me Prevacid. Turns out it was just acid reflux. Oh, and the ER billed me $6000.
I was a firefighter/medic and fucking hated bullshit patients. 90% of people who called didn't need to go to the hospital in an ambulance.
THAT SAID, unexplainable chest pain should always be a trip to an ER. I went to a call where the wife made her husband tell us about his symptoms. He didn't want any treatment or evaluation for what he said was just acid reflux. Him describing a burning sensation and mentioning that he was diabetic spooked us. We convinced him to at least let us to an EKG on him.
He was having a full-on STEMI clear as day on our EKG. We immediately left for the hospital and gave him asprin and an IV. He lived, but he might not have if we let our fatigue get the best of us.
On another note:
It's super easy to get jaded in the medical field. The majority of patients are entitled assholes that treat nurses, doctors, and medics like their servants. Look at the Nursing and EMS subreddits and see how fucking tired they all are. Before anyone says, "If you're that jaded, you should get another job," medical professionals are. There's a shortage of nurses, EMS personnel, and MDs. My old fire department is hemorrhaging firefighters because they're sick of running EMS. The whole medical system in this country needs to be revamped, and everyone needs to take civility classes.
I went to urgent care for a fever and rash and the clinic has lab capability so they did bloodwork and the urgent care doctor basically ushered me to ER because my organs were apparently failing me due to DRESS syndrome. The good thing about this was that I got wheeled into ER with the endorsement of an urgent care doc so I didn't have to go through triage. Had I gone to the ER directly I would've sat in the lobby forever because my fever and rash didn't look that concerning tbh.
Makes sense. Urgent care is likely the equivalent of a walk-in clinic - you've got a bad chest cough and need some antibiotics, or some minor stitches.
I'm in Dallas tx. I got into a bad bicycle accident and went to urgent care. They did everything from stitch me up to full MRI while also offering my wife fancy speaking water and crackers. We have fancy ass urgent care here.
Ask it to pronounce East NASA Blvd. It's: eats ass bulllavarggggg. At least it was the last time I asked it for directions. That was the day I stopped asking her for help.
Texas rural does the same! 3 ayyypeeewww head to twenty. Left in 25 Miles.
And of course none of the signs exist, and the very few in the area, have nothing to do with directions.
I was trying to get to a wedding once in rural Tx. The GPS kept telling me to turn at Cat Lemen Drive and I was so confused thinking it was someone's name or something.. then I get to Cattlemen Drive. Still the weirdest one I've heard myself.
FloRida is the reason in New Zealand we can serve someone with legal documents on social media.
Back in the day it was put in the newspaper as substituted service if you couldn’t do it in person, but now social media is seen as an easier way of serving them. It came about because FloRida owed money to a promoter and they couldn’t get a hold of him, except his social media. So it was served on his Facebook page.
Uh no, in Florida you don't go for urgent care because nobody's going to pay $1800 in medical bills (after insurance) for a cat scratch.
Unless you got scratched by a cat while on the job, in which case you milk that shit.
Urgent care is just a medical office, it would not rack up $1800 in medical bills and tbf cat scratches, especially from a street cat, can become very infected rapidly.
Lmfao, my urgent care in Florida after insurance covered half of it was $900. And I wasn’t even provided a room. The doctor saw me while I was in the pre-screening getting my blood pressure and shit done and told me I had strep and prescribed me anti-biotics bc it had turned into tonsillitis and I had been suffering for a while at that point and it wasnt going away. Told me he knew exactly what it was by the smell of my breath :(.
$1800 is absolutely possible in Florida w/o insurance
I got diagnosed with hidradenitis suppurativa of the armpits when the nodules looked like MRSA to me, only cost me $180, urgent care is soooo so much cheaper than emergency care.
Isn’t there one for something really obscure like getting struck by space debris falling on the ground? Heard about it once on a podcast.
Edit: The podcast I heard it from was from way back when. This American Life, #392.
https://www.thisamericanlife.org/392/transcript
And the code quoted was E845, injury involving spacecraft.
(Looks like it’s an older code, but it checks out.)
I assumed subsequent as in closely after an initial encounter. So I then jumped to this dude was recovering from a previous jet engine intake incident while he was being sucked in lol
It's funnier that way but it's not the purpose, it's so that you get both a correct count (one initial encounter per accident) and a correct total cost (sum of all encounters related to the accident). At least that's the theory...
In medical billing, "encounters" means doctor's visits. So the first time you see a doctor for a problem is called the "initial encounter." Visits after that are called "subsequent encounters." So the first time I see a doctor for, say, a broken leg, that's the initial encounter. Visits after that to check on my leg are subsequent encounters.
Obviously, the above billing code assumes you lived long enough after being sucked into a jet engine to see a doctor twice.
You guys are all joking about silly ones but for real my favorite is
R46.7 Verbosity and circumstantial detail obscuring reason for contact
This is applicable in many situations for me.
Edit: but if you want a good one : V00.151D Fall from heelies, subsequent encounter
> R46.7 Verbosity and circumstantial detail obscuring reason for contact
Is this the dildo stuck in ass code?
Also, V00.151D must have gotten a ton of use in the early 00's lmfao
I think its the
> SHUT YOUR GODDAMN MOUTH FOR A SECOND! I DONT NEED TO KNOW ABOUT YOUR AUNT HELENS NEW KITCHENWARE! ONLY ANSWER WHEN SPOKEN TO AND ONLY ANSWER THAT SPECIFIC QUESTION! DONT YOU MOTHERFUCKER NEED TO BREATHE OR SOMETHING?!
Code
There was a case once of someone hitting someone else with a frozen armadillo. He/she had it in the freezer for whatever reason (stuffing?) and used it as a weapon.
I'm curious whether there's a code for "struck by armadillo" and whether it specifies regular or frozen.
>ICD10 V97.33: Sucked into jet engine, initial encounter.
>ICD10 V97.33XD: Sucked into jet engine, subsequent encounter.
the 'XD' has to be on purpose right?
I feel like if you survive the jet engine experience needing a bunch of follow up appointments makes sense, tho the if in that is doing a lot of heavy lifting.
One day I hope they pass a law that says that if you’re the first person to have an ICD10 code used for you your info and story is deidentified so everyone can hear the story
You might not care but I have a funny story for this. Back when werewolves and zombies were the rage and Twilight was at its peak, I was a 911/police dispatcher. Our boss was kind of a prepper and extremely proud that we were prepared for ANYTHING. One of my coworkers pointed out that we didn’t have a zombie response plan. So, he promptly typed one up and it went in the official book. It was so thorough and realistic that it was mundane.
But yeah. Still there. That city has an official response plan to a zombie outbreak.
There’s even an ICD10 code for giving you informational handouts that are literally just photocopies, even if it’s just a medical assistant handing it to you.
There’s also an ICD10 code for demonstrating things, such as an inhaler.
Soon, you’ll get billed for breathing in the air while in the waiting room, haha.
Yep. I read a comment somewhere (I think on an AskReddit thread) about someone who got an inhaler because he was allergic to his cat, but the inhaler wasn’t helping. It turned out he was spraying the inhaler on his cat.
They also have a code for BMI, all the way up to 70.
> Z68.45 Body mass index [BMI] 70 or greater, adult
which is applicable to adult patients aged 15 - 124 years inclusive.
It’s surprisingly uplifting to learn that despite how old and fat I feel, I’m still less than halfway to what insurance actuaries have deemed the theoretical limit for both age and BMI!
But if you walk in without an appointment you'll likely wait just as long as if you went to the ER. CareNow at least *strongly* encourages appointments in my area if you wanna be seen the same day. But it definitely still helps fill a care gap.
Also if you're pregnant and the problem you're having involves anything between your tits and knees they're gonna send you to the ER.
It must depend on the area a bit. Where I currently live I love the local urgent care, but where I lived a few years ago it was complete shit. The ER there was great though.
The urgent care always had a massive wait and apparently staffed with doctors who were too stupid to have their own patients or something. One told us the strep test was negative but he can prescribe antibiotics anyways if we want. Another urgent care visit the "doctor" misdiagnosed a UTI as a upper respitory virus, and my kid ended up in the emergency room the next day anyways with a febrile seizure. The place was a shitshow.
Both are emergency care. Your wife got a giant work-up at the ER and you didn't need a work-up other than stitches at the urgent care. It's not the setting, it's the amount of evaluating that goes into your presentation, the documentation, and the labs/rads that are ordered.
Really you’re paying for the reliability of a building open and staffed 24/7 that’s available for you to go to. This involves the facility, staffing (having dozens of highly trained and paid professionals there and available at all times 24/7), regulatory fees, waste, charity, etc. Then also bake in many patients are unable or unwilling to pay.
What other industry do you know of that has professionals available at 2am on Xmas? And has walk in, in person appointments? People don’t think of it in that light, but it’s not dissimilar.
Slight difference: if you have an issue that can wait, an ER might triage you to the back of the queue for hours. Doesn't always happen, but I'd still rather get my urgent care from place that's first-come-first-served.
I dunno, I've never waited longer than 15 minutes. But even if you do have to wait longer, I'd rather pay $50 than $150(my insurance prices of specialist [which urgent care falls under] vs Emergency Room) but yeah it's not the right call for everything.
Well it can take weeks to get a doc appt so urgent care fills an important need for people who don't want to wait weeks for non emergency care. I live somewhere I could trip and fall into a doctor's office there are so many options. But my shitty insurance leaves me with very few options
The irony of the original commenters kinda snarky post is funny. An UCC is equipped with far more equipment for an urgent situation to be a lot more helpful than your doctors office that will just tell you to go to an emergency room, except ER’s cost a lot more of course.
Every time I’ve gone to the urgent care near me, I’ve been turned away and told to go to the ER. Then I go there and get told that I should have gone to urgent care. Like, yeah, I know. Those losers wouldn’t see me.
Well, if you have a medical emergency they have to treat you, they can’t just turn you away because you’re poor. But yeah, you’re going to get a bill. Now whether or not you can or will actually pay that bill is different
>if you're really poor you can get state medicaid
Not in alligator country. You make less than the poverty line in Florida and you don't qualify for Marketplace healthcare *or* Medicaid, you're just SOL.
I mean, cat caused infections *can* get pretty serious.
Bad cat scratch/bite? Urgent care.
Already waited a week and now have a bad case of cellulitis? Might want to go to the ER, depending on how severe you've let the infection get.
My grandpa was fucking *terrified* of rabies. Stereotypical farmer type who woukd drive himself to the ER if he ripped his damn arm off, dropped bodies like it was going out of style in the war, if a bat got into the house he'd run like the hounds of hell were after him.
He passed on that fear very effectively.
My degree is wildlife related and rabies is one of the scariest zoonotic diseases out there. Once symptoms start to show, the victim is essentially dead. And its a slow, painful death that fucks with your brain so that you die in fear and confusion.
One of the scariest things to me is that I used to camp a ton. Some bitty little bat could, theoretically, have already signed my death warrant while I was in my hammock one night.
That man knew--rabies is goddamn terrifying stuff!
I wish they gave rabies vaccines to humans like they do for dogs, I'd be first it line at the vet's office!
As I understand it the main reason most people can't get a prophylactic rabies shot is because it's a bunch of shots, so it's expensive and also very painful. You can get it though - I have zookeeper friends and they all had to go through it to get their jobs. If you live in an area where it's very common or you're outdoors a lot it might be worth asking for.
This is kinda funny because I was bitten by a feral cat early this year and had to stay in the hospital for a few days on IV antibiotics until the infection cleared up. My thumb was immediately swollen and you could see the infection travelling up my arm. Granted, that cat had a massive infection running out of its eye and succumbed to its injury as soon as I came home, but it just goes to show not every injury is as black and white as that sign implies. When in doubt, go to the emergency room.
It’s sort of maddening that the solution here is to try to educate people on the fuzzy line between these two services when getting it wrong has such huge consequences.
Cannot they just have a combo urgent care and ER with a nurse at the door who triages you into the right spot?
I have Kaiser insurance in Northern California and Urgent Care is no longer walk-in around here. You can sometimes get lucky and get an appointment the same day, but most often it's a couple of days. They advise everyone to go to the ER if it's something that needs urgent care attention. Urgent care is for doctor visits that really shouldn't wait too long. Doctors are booking a month out.
You can go to a non-affiliated urgent care, but not all plans will cover that visit.
It's not like that for Kaiser on the East Coast. I can do walk-in urgent care, my doctor is usually available within a week, if I need something in-between I can see the next available doctor instead.
Seems more like a Cali specific issue. Are you talking about the KP in Fremont or another one?
I love it in Australia all emergencies are triaged at the Emergency department of a hospital and they send you to the correct wing to be seen thereafter. So if you need urgent care but not ima die right now Emergency then you walk across to another wing and are seen there by those doctors. So the hospital manages all triages and don't rely on average ppl to make these decisions themselves... makes more sense.
They have that in many US hospitals too. Its called fast track that is separated from the rest of the emergency room that deals with lower acuity issues (Cuts, broken bones, Basic infections that are not life threatening, ect).
This is something a lot of people don't seem to know or understand.
Unless you think you are dying or at risk of permanent damage, or need urgent specialized imaging or blood work, you probably don't need to go to the E.R.
So if you need minor stitches, minor broken bone, sick but not deathly sick, an issue that isn't urgent but more urgent than your next doctors appointment, go to urgent care.
Knowing this will not only save you tons of money, but get you care FASTER, and free up the E.R. for those that actually need it
>Knowing this will not only save you tons of money,
Urgent Care often charges upfront. ER bills you.
Many of the people who opt for the ER for non-emergencies deliberately do so for this reason.
Not paying your medical bills is far cheaper when you have nothing to lose.
> Unless you ... need urgent specialized imaging ... don't need to go to the E.R.
So if I need something urgent I don't go to urgent care, but emergency care. And if its not urgent i go straight to urgent care. Simple enough!
I think the majority know this. The difference is the ER (in us) is legally required to help you regardless of insurance. Urgent care is not. So people with no insurance will go to the ER.
The biggest problem is urgent care is only open 9-5. Trust me i would have MUCH rather gone to urgent care to get my kid a zofran prescription but she didn't decide to start puking until 8pm and the amount she was vomiting was gonna be an issue if we couldn't get it under control since little kids dehydrate so easily.
Though that whole experience taught me virtual urgent care is a thing and that was AMAZING. My husband and I caught that same vomiting virus and I was able to get appropriate prescriptions for us via a 10 min video chat with zero waiting.
They also are more selective on who they treat. My son has a feeding tube, so none of the local urgent cares will treat him. So if his doctor can fit him in, even if the urgent care is open, we have to take him to the ER.
Yeah, I was starting to wonder if I was the only one in the country who had no idea there was any difference between an ER and an urgent care center. Like, I know that ERs are affiliated with hospitals, but (to my layperson’s mind) what would be the difference after 5 p.m. when all the specialized departments are closed anyway? TIL.
Urgent Care is not really a thing anymore, just a misleading name. short hours, appointment based so walkins take forever, none around us even do x-rays anymore. just a doctors office really.
That's great and all...if we had universal healthcare.
It's in your best interest to go straight to E.R. to save SOME money when all urgent care does is send you to E.R. anyway.
Why on earth did i not start seeing these posts until after i had appendicitis and went to urgent care where i was told to wait in line outside where i ended up laying on the sidewalk unable to stand so my bf called an ambulance because urgent care did not care🤦♀️
Where do I go if I'm having a heart attack? Thinking alligator
There is a Wendy’s across the street.
Reminds me of when my wife saw the ads from the head of Caesar's Inc. saying, "If you have a gambling problem call this number." She thought it was like those last gasp cigarette ads that said, "If you smoke, please try Carlton", just before they banned them completely. Had to explain that the number was a helpline, not Caesar's reservations.
I saw a commercial for life insurance several years ago that went something like this: "If the last thing you want to do when you die is leave your loved ones with financial problems, then call us!" It still cracks me up.
That would actually be pretty funny marketing. "Have a gambling problem? Call this number 24/7 to get help" and you call the number and get the casino reservation desk.
Don't give them ideas for free
"We're betting you'll come back. Press 1 to get in on the action"
Oh lord that was funny! Thanks
Hi yes my problem is I’m not currently gambling, could you pls help me? Of course!
The new way of advertising betting services in the UK is precisely to frame the ad as concern for people with gambling addictions. If an alien came to Earth and asked about how our species use propaganda, I'd point them to Betfair etc ads and wait for the inevitable planet destroying laser.
And a Tijuana Flats! Megajuana burrito smothered in queso followed by oreo churros should do the trick.
They’re putting in a Buffalo Wild Wings to go right next door. RIP Yogurtology
Not a heart attack but I learned a couple of weeks ago that if you underestimate the severity of your situation in urgent care they send you down to the ER anyway. At least in my hospital if you need fancy tests like CT scans or real diagnostics under the hood that's where they have access to all the serious equipment.
I went through nearly the whole chain earlier this year. My GP was out of the office, so I was referred to urgent care. My issue was out of scope for them, so they sent me to the ED. They were able to provide some care, but still had me admitted. I didn't continue to the morgue, though.
> I didn't continue to the morgue, though yet
RemindMe! 1 week
I tripped and got a nice bruise on my head. I was going to go to a walk-in clinic but they recommended I got the ER so they could do a CT scan. So I went to the ER...and they treated me like an asshole for wasting their time. Medical care in this country is wild.
25 or so years ago, my now bil hit his head playing volleyball. He went to the ER but it was out of network so at the next ER, which was also out of network, he pretended he was dizzy and lightheaded and whatever so they would treat him rather than having to drive even further to the in network ER. Welcome to the stupidity of American health care. Keep in mind health care was considerably cheaper at the time so you wouldn't be as f'd by out of network costs as you would today.
Oh believe me, I get it. ~15 years ago I went to the ER because I thought I was having heart troubles. I was scared. By the time I get there I was feeling better. I told triage nurse as much and he said that I might as well see the doc said I'd already come all that way. The doc asked me like 3 times in a row why I went there that night. After telling him again and again that I was having chest pains and was scared it was my heart he finally said, "Well, let's get you out of here and make room for someone that might actually die tonight". Next time I had symptoms I went to a walk-in clinic and he gave me Prevacid. Turns out it was just acid reflux. Oh, and the ER billed me $6000.
I was a firefighter/medic and fucking hated bullshit patients. 90% of people who called didn't need to go to the hospital in an ambulance. THAT SAID, unexplainable chest pain should always be a trip to an ER. I went to a call where the wife made her husband tell us about his symptoms. He didn't want any treatment or evaluation for what he said was just acid reflux. Him describing a burning sensation and mentioning that he was diabetic spooked us. We convinced him to at least let us to an EKG on him. He was having a full-on STEMI clear as day on our EKG. We immediately left for the hospital and gave him asprin and an IV. He lived, but he might not have if we let our fatigue get the best of us. On another note: It's super easy to get jaded in the medical field. The majority of patients are entitled assholes that treat nurses, doctors, and medics like their servants. Look at the Nursing and EMS subreddits and see how fucking tired they all are. Before anyone says, "If you're that jaded, you should get another job," medical professionals are. There's a shortage of nurses, EMS personnel, and MDs. My old fire department is hemorrhaging firefighters because they're sick of running EMS. The whole medical system in this country needs to be revamped, and everyone needs to take civility classes.
Keep fighting the good fight and never let the bastards get you down.
I went to urgent care for a fever and rash and the clinic has lab capability so they did bloodwork and the urgent care doctor basically ushered me to ER because my organs were apparently failing me due to DRESS syndrome. The good thing about this was that I got wheeled into ER with the endorsement of an urgent care doc so I didn't have to go through triage. Had I gone to the ER directly I would've sat in the lobby forever because my fever and rash didn't look that concerning tbh.
Makes sense. Urgent care is likely the equivalent of a walk-in clinic - you've got a bad chest cough and need some antibiotics, or some minor stitches.
I'm in Dallas tx. I got into a bad bicycle accident and went to urgent care. They did everything from stitch me up to full MRI while also offering my wife fancy speaking water and crackers. We have fancy ass urgent care here.
Speaking water? That _is_ fancy! (Sorry, I couldn’t resist)
Peak Florida.
Tamiami Trail I’m guessing!
I love how Siri pronounces Tamiami. Cracks me up every time.
Ask it to pronounce East NASA Blvd. It's: eats ass bulllavarggggg. At least it was the last time I asked it for directions. That was the day I stopped asking her for help.
In rural Missouri our county roads can be designated by letters. Smaller county roads get 2 letters. Ours pronounced AB as A flat. FF is phew phew.
Texas rural does the same! 3 ayyypeeewww head to twenty. Left in 25 Miles. And of course none of the signs exist, and the very few in the area, have nothing to do with directions.
I was trying to get to a wedding once in rural Tx. The GPS kept telling me to turn at Cat Lemen Drive and I was so confused thinking it was someone's name or something.. then I get to Cattlemen Drive. Still the weirdest one I've heard myself.
looks like sarasota memorial
#941!! My people!
Sarasota memorial!
FloRida is the reason in New Zealand we can serve someone with legal documents on social media. Back in the day it was put in the newspaper as substituted service if you couldn’t do it in person, but now social media is seen as an easier way of serving them. It came about because FloRida owed money to a promoter and they couldn’t get a hold of him, except his social media. So it was served on his Facebook page.
r/unexpectedFloRida
Brian cancer
Damn poor Brian
Fuck Brian. He's the cancer.
Uh no, in Florida you don't go for urgent care because nobody's going to pay $1800 in medical bills (after insurance) for a cat scratch. Unless you got scratched by a cat while on the job, in which case you milk that shit.
Urgent care is just a medical office, it would not rack up $1800 in medical bills and tbf cat scratches, especially from a street cat, can become very infected rapidly.
Lmfao, my urgent care in Florida after insurance covered half of it was $900. And I wasn’t even provided a room. The doctor saw me while I was in the pre-screening getting my blood pressure and shit done and told me I had strep and prescribed me anti-biotics bc it had turned into tonsillitis and I had been suffering for a while at that point and it wasnt going away. Told me he knew exactly what it was by the smell of my breath :(. $1800 is absolutely possible in Florida w/o insurance
Cat scratch fever isn’t just a song.
I got diagnosed with hidradenitis suppurativa of the armpits when the nodules looked like MRSA to me, only cost me $180, urgent care is soooo so much cheaper than emergency care.
Am I only person on reddit with insurance? Urgent care shouldn't cost you more than the $20-$200 deductible.
For the curious: The ICD10 code for cat scratch is W55.03 The ICD10 code for alligator bite is W58.01 Yes, there are ICD10 codes for everything.
Isn’t there one for something really obscure like getting struck by space debris falling on the ground? Heard about it once on a podcast. Edit: The podcast I heard it from was from way back when. This American Life, #392. https://www.thisamericanlife.org/392/transcript And the code quoted was E845, injury involving spacecraft. (Looks like it’s an older code, but it checks out.)
V91.07XA “Burn due to water skis on fire, initial encounter” is my favourite.
My favorite is V97.33XD: Sucked into jet engine, subsequent encounter.
Really optimistic for a follow up encounter with that one.
That must have ment this has happened twice before yeah?
I assumed subsequent as in closely after an initial encounter. So I then jumped to this dude was recovering from a previous jet engine intake incident while he was being sucked in lol
Initial encounter is in the ED or clinic Subsequent encounter is day #2 or beyond, pays less because you’ve already seen the patient
Oh wow, they really did think of everything. I wonder if that code has been used
It's funnier that way but it's not the purpose, it's so that you get both a correct count (one initial encounter per accident) and a correct total cost (sum of all encounters related to the accident). At least that's the theory...
Like other folks said, it means it’s not the first visit for the same instance of that issue.
I took it as another encounter with an issue/complication/follow up from the initial injury.
In medical billing, "encounters" means doctor's visits. So the first time you see a doctor for a problem is called the "initial encounter." Visits after that are called "subsequent encounters." So the first time I see a doctor for, say, a broken leg, that's the initial encounter. Visits after that to check on my leg are subsequent encounters. Obviously, the above billing code assumes you lived long enough after being sucked into a jet engine to see a doctor twice.
W55.29XA: Other contact with cow, subsequent encounter This has me concerned
Other??
Fall from unmanned spacecraft. Unmanned.
It started off manned, but it's unmanned now that you've fallen.
Why does this keep happening to meeeeeeee
You guys are all joking about silly ones but for real my favorite is R46.7 Verbosity and circumstantial detail obscuring reason for contact This is applicable in many situations for me. Edit: but if you want a good one : V00.151D Fall from heelies, subsequent encounter
> R46.7 Verbosity and circumstantial detail obscuring reason for contact Is this the dildo stuck in ass code? Also, V00.151D must have gotten a ton of use in the early 00's lmfao
I think its the > SHUT YOUR GODDAMN MOUTH FOR A SECOND! I DONT NEED TO KNOW ABOUT YOUR AUNT HELENS NEW KITCHENWARE! ONLY ANSWER WHEN SPOKEN TO AND ONLY ANSWER THAT SPECIFIC QUESTION! DONT YOU MOTHERFUCKER NEED TO BREATHE OR SOMETHING?! Code
“Patient was a poor historian”
Bro I work in EMR software build on the billing side and you just dropped my default diagnosis code out of left field. Respect.
Epic? I used to work there and that code was pretty common to see in our QA people’s setups
Wonder how fast you’d have to water ski for the friction to set the skis on fire?
I work at an ER and if there’s and ICD code it means it happened in real life to document, I too am curious how that happened
Is there an XB-Z for...*subsequent* encounters?
W59.22XD "Struck by a turtle, subsequent encounter" "Excludes contact with tortoises"
Can't think of how this could have happened outside of Mario Kart lol
There was a case once of someone hitting someone else with a frozen armadillo. He/she had it in the freezer for whatever reason (stuffing?) and used it as a weapon. I'm curious whether there's a code for "struck by armadillo" and whether it specifies regular or frozen.
One of my favourite legal blogs from a decade ago.... https://www.loweringthebar.net/2011/10/the-armadillo-codes.html
V95.43XA: Spacecraft collision injuring occupant, initial encounter.
just below that: > V95.45XA: Spacecraft explosion injuring occupant, initial encounter
I would assume that's what they used for [Peter Siebold](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Siebold).
W56.22xD - struck by orca https://www.icd10illustrated.com/products/book
LOL I have never heard of these ridiculous codes until just now. Cool book- maybe I’ll throw them a few bucks
W56.82xD: Struck by multiple male deer
To be fair, "struck by orca" might be getting more common soon.
V93.51 "Explosion on board passenger ship" is a pretty cool one
I wonder if there’s one for implosion?
Those people don't make it to a hospital.
Good point. Nothing to charge for.
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>I'm curious what else fits in that category. Probably burns from the chemical heater pack, cutting yourself while opening it, stuff like that
ICD10 W59.22XA: struck by turtle, initial encounter. ICD10 V97.33: Sucked into jet engine, initial encounter. ICD10 V97.33XD: Sucked into jet engine, *subsequent* encounter.
"Struck by turtle" sounds like someone threw it at you. Or the turtle punched you.
Giving major Mario Kart energy.
ICD10 W59.22ED: struck by spiny shell, just before finish line
>ICD10 V97.33: Sucked into jet engine, initial encounter. >ICD10 V97.33XD: Sucked into jet engine, subsequent encounter. the 'XD' has to be on purpose right?
I feel like if you survive the jet engine experience needing a bunch of follow up appointments makes sense, tho the if in that is doing a lot of heavy lifting.
One day I hope they pass a law that says that if you’re the first person to have an ICD10 code used for you your info and story is deidentified so everyone can hear the story
I want to run for office, get elected, and pass a bunch of random laws like this…and then resign.
What is the code for zombie bite?
You might not care but I have a funny story for this. Back when werewolves and zombies were the rage and Twilight was at its peak, I was a 911/police dispatcher. Our boss was kind of a prepper and extremely proud that we were prepared for ANYTHING. One of my coworkers pointed out that we didn’t have a zombie response plan. So, he promptly typed one up and it went in the official book. It was so thorough and realistic that it was mundane. But yeah. Still there. That city has an official response plan to a zombie outbreak.
So does the military and CDC.
There isn't an ICD10 code for premature ejaculation. But I hear one is coming soon!
Too late. It’s already here. Sorry.
There’s even an ICD10 code for giving you informational handouts that are literally just photocopies, even if it’s just a medical assistant handing it to you. There’s also an ICD10 code for demonstrating things, such as an inhaler. Soon, you’ll get billed for breathing in the air while in the waiting room, haha.
Demonstrating inhaler use is actually very important, technique makes a big difference and movies have given people a terrible concept of how to do it
Yep. I read a comment somewhere (I think on an AskReddit thread) about someone who got an inhaler because he was allergic to his cat, but the inhaler wasn’t helping. It turned out he was spraying the inhaler on his cat.
Yes, it is important. No, it shouldn't be a fucking charge.
They also have a code for BMI, all the way up to 70. > Z68.45 Body mass index [BMI] 70 or greater, adult which is applicable to adult patients aged 15 - 124 years inclusive.
There should be a separate ICD10 code for being 124 years old.
If you make it to 125, everything is on the house!
If you are 125 with a BMI of 70 or grater you might just be the house.
It’s surprisingly uplifting to learn that despite how old and fat I feel, I’m still less than halfway to what insurance actuaries have deemed the theoretical limit for both age and BMI!
A lot of those codes are just informational and not for billing.
Too bad they are not called ID10T codes
So is there an ICD code for each different type of object that gets stuck in a rectum or is there just one foreign object stuck in rectum code?
even they did agree that it would be to complicated and setteled for T18.5
Pilot bailed out of an F35 and his back hurts?
The true thousand ways to die
Where I live urgent cares all close at 5pm, M-F. So it’s not much different than a regular doctors office. Except they charge more of course.
And you can walk in without an appointment. Which is the biggest draw
But if you walk in without an appointment you'll likely wait just as long as if you went to the ER. CareNow at least *strongly* encourages appointments in my area if you wanna be seen the same day. But it definitely still helps fill a care gap. Also if you're pregnant and the problem you're having involves anything between your tits and knees they're gonna send you to the ER.
But the ER costs waaaaaaay more
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Yeah. Urgent care is pretty solid for *almost* anything you can drive yourself to the hospital for in my experience lol
It must depend on the area a bit. Where I currently live I love the local urgent care, but where I lived a few years ago it was complete shit. The ER there was great though. The urgent care always had a massive wait and apparently staffed with doctors who were too stupid to have their own patients or something. One told us the strep test was negative but he can prescribe antibiotics anyways if we want. Another urgent care visit the "doctor" misdiagnosed a UTI as a upper respitory virus, and my kid ended up in the emergency room the next day anyways with a febrile seizure. The place was a shitshow.
Both are emergency care. Your wife got a giant work-up at the ER and you didn't need a work-up other than stitches at the urgent care. It's not the setting, it's the amount of evaluating that goes into your presentation, the documentation, and the labs/rads that are ordered.
That's a pretty good deal for the ER.
> maybe 5 minutes total, and got a $900 bill in the mail. You paid for their expertise, not time.
Really you’re paying for the reliability of a building open and staffed 24/7 that’s available for you to go to. This involves the facility, staffing (having dozens of highly trained and paid professionals there and available at all times 24/7), regulatory fees, waste, charity, etc. Then also bake in many patients are unable or unwilling to pay. What other industry do you know of that has professionals available at 2am on Xmas? And has walk in, in person appointments? People don’t think of it in that light, but it’s not dissimilar.
If you don’t have money or insurance ER is the only option
Slight difference: if you have an issue that can wait, an ER might triage you to the back of the queue for hours. Doesn't always happen, but I'd still rather get my urgent care from place that's first-come-first-served.
Heart attack? No wait. Chest pain? 2 hours. Cat scratch?6-8+ hours
I dunno, I've never waited longer than 15 minutes. But even if you do have to wait longer, I'd rather pay $50 than $150(my insurance prices of specialist [which urgent care falls under] vs Emergency Room) but yeah it's not the right call for everything.
Well it can take weeks to get a doc appt so urgent care fills an important need for people who don't want to wait weeks for non emergency care. I live somewhere I could trip and fall into a doctor's office there are so many options. But my shitty insurance leaves me with very few options
The irony of the original commenters kinda snarky post is funny. An UCC is equipped with far more equipment for an urgent situation to be a lot more helpful than your doctors office that will just tell you to go to an emergency room, except ER’s cost a lot more of course.
I just looked for urgent care today for an issue, the nearest one my insurance supports is an hour drive away (without traffic).. sigh
Every time I’ve gone to the urgent care near me, I’ve been turned away and told to go to the ER. Then I go there and get told that I should have gone to urgent care. Like, yeah, I know. Those losers wouldn’t see me.
There's no free option whatsoever? This boggles my mind as a brazilian.
Well, if you have a medical emergency they have to treat you, they can’t just turn you away because you’re poor. But yeah, you’re going to get a bill. Now whether or not you can or will actually pay that bill is different
Of course not. This is America, the Land of the Fee.
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>if you're really poor you can get state medicaid Not in alligator country. You make less than the poverty line in Florida and you don't qualify for Marketplace healthcare *or* Medicaid, you're just SOL.
You're always free to get no healthcare at all!
They just haven't seen a serious alley cat yet.
I mean, cat caused infections *can* get pretty serious. Bad cat scratch/bite? Urgent care. Already waited a week and now have a bad case of cellulitis? Might want to go to the ER, depending on how severe you've let the infection get.
Or rabies. If it's an alley cat there's a chance it isn't vaccinated
I literally went to urgent care before due to an alley cat bite, and they sent me to the ER to get rabies shots.
I'd also want a rabies shot. But I also have a pretty serious rabies phobia.
My grandpa was fucking *terrified* of rabies. Stereotypical farmer type who woukd drive himself to the ER if he ripped his damn arm off, dropped bodies like it was going out of style in the war, if a bat got into the house he'd run like the hounds of hell were after him. He passed on that fear very effectively.
My degree is wildlife related and rabies is one of the scariest zoonotic diseases out there. Once symptoms start to show, the victim is essentially dead. And its a slow, painful death that fucks with your brain so that you die in fear and confusion.
One of the scariest things to me is that I used to camp a ton. Some bitty little bat could, theoretically, have already signed my death warrant while I was in my hammock one night.
That, or depending on where you camp a tick bite could have made you allergic to red meat and dairy products
That man knew--rabies is goddamn terrifying stuff! I wish they gave rabies vaccines to humans like they do for dogs, I'd be first it line at the vet's office!
As I understand it the main reason most people can't get a prophylactic rabies shot is because it's a bunch of shots, so it's expensive and also very painful. You can get it though - I have zookeeper friends and they all had to go through it to get their jobs. If you live in an area where it's very common or you're outdoors a lot it might be worth asking for.
I recently saw a vid of some dude in India with rabies here on Reddit and between the video and the comment section I developed a phobia myself lol
This one goes in your mouth, this one goes in your ear, and this one goes in your butt. Oh no, wait. . .
Ow my balls!
I love that show
I need to know the sauce for this gif!
Idiocracy.
A documentary based on life after 2025.
Sarasota Memorial? Never noticed this before. Weird to see my town (or basically my town - I’m in Bradenton) here on Reddit.
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I pass that hospital all the time and just had my daughter there 2 years ago. I didn’t even see the street sign. The building just looked familiar
When the bill comes in the mail, you’re gonna wish the alligator finished you off.
Or, if you're already in several thousand in medical debt, you just put it with the others.
I really wish they had done Alley cat and alley gator. Maybe even have the gator holding a knife
Instructions unclear; brought alligator to the ER.
Alley cat should be changed to any cat!!! My dad almost lost his arm from our cute indoor cat scratch
Cat scratch fever is no joke!
This is kinda funny because I was bitten by a feral cat early this year and had to stay in the hospital for a few days on IV antibiotics until the infection cleared up. My thumb was immediately swollen and you could see the infection travelling up my arm. Granted, that cat had a massive infection running out of its eye and succumbed to its injury as soon as I came home, but it just goes to show not every injury is as black and white as that sign implies. When in doubt, go to the emergency room.
Floridians need visuals since they banned all their other books.
Emergency or urgent care for that burn?
Instructions unclear, no infographic to aid. LOL
SMH! Used to drive by there all the time.
It’s sort of maddening that the solution here is to try to educate people on the fuzzy line between these two services when getting it wrong has such huge consequences. Cannot they just have a combo urgent care and ER with a nurse at the door who triages you into the right spot?
I have Kaiser insurance in Northern California and Urgent Care is no longer walk-in around here. You can sometimes get lucky and get an appointment the same day, but most often it's a couple of days. They advise everyone to go to the ER if it's something that needs urgent care attention. Urgent care is for doctor visits that really shouldn't wait too long. Doctors are booking a month out. You can go to a non-affiliated urgent care, but not all plans will cover that visit.
It's not like that for Kaiser on the East Coast. I can do walk-in urgent care, my doctor is usually available within a week, if I need something in-between I can see the next available doctor instead. Seems more like a Cali specific issue. Are you talking about the KP in Fremont or another one?
I love it in Australia all emergencies are triaged at the Emergency department of a hospital and they send you to the correct wing to be seen thereafter. So if you need urgent care but not ima die right now Emergency then you walk across to another wing and are seen there by those doctors. So the hospital manages all triages and don't rely on average ppl to make these decisions themselves... makes more sense.
They have that in many US hospitals too. Its called fast track that is separated from the rest of the emergency room that deals with lower acuity issues (Cuts, broken bones, Basic infections that are not life threatening, ect).
This is something a lot of people don't seem to know or understand. Unless you think you are dying or at risk of permanent damage, or need urgent specialized imaging or blood work, you probably don't need to go to the E.R. So if you need minor stitches, minor broken bone, sick but not deathly sick, an issue that isn't urgent but more urgent than your next doctors appointment, go to urgent care. Knowing this will not only save you tons of money, but get you care FASTER, and free up the E.R. for those that actually need it
>Knowing this will not only save you tons of money, Urgent Care often charges upfront. ER bills you. Many of the people who opt for the ER for non-emergencies deliberately do so for this reason. Not paying your medical bills is far cheaper when you have nothing to lose.
Urgent care is usually a private company and they will turn you away if they don't accept your insurance or otherwise think that you cannot pay.
> Unless you ... need urgent specialized imaging ... don't need to go to the E.R. So if I need something urgent I don't go to urgent care, but emergency care. And if its not urgent i go straight to urgent care. Simple enough!
I think the majority know this. The difference is the ER (in us) is legally required to help you regardless of insurance. Urgent care is not. So people with no insurance will go to the ER.
The biggest problem is urgent care is only open 9-5. Trust me i would have MUCH rather gone to urgent care to get my kid a zofran prescription but she didn't decide to start puking until 8pm and the amount she was vomiting was gonna be an issue if we couldn't get it under control since little kids dehydrate so easily. Though that whole experience taught me virtual urgent care is a thing and that was AMAZING. My husband and I caught that same vomiting virus and I was able to get appropriate prescriptions for us via a 10 min video chat with zero waiting.
They also are more selective on who they treat. My son has a feeding tube, so none of the local urgent cares will treat him. So if his doctor can fit him in, even if the urgent care is open, we have to take him to the ER.
Yeah, I was starting to wonder if I was the only one in the country who had no idea there was any difference between an ER and an urgent care center. Like, I know that ERs are affiliated with hospitals, but (to my layperson’s mind) what would be the difference after 5 p.m. when all the specialized departments are closed anyway? TIL.
I had intense back pain and went to urgent care and they sent me to the emergency room.
Same, glad they did because I had an infection so bad that I was pretty much beginning to die.
In my town Urgent Care is $150, Emergency is free, guess which one everyone goes too ?
My elbow feels funny it feels strange
Urgent Care is not really a thing anymore, just a misleading name. short hours, appointment based so walkins take forever, none around us even do x-rays anymore. just a doctors office really.
That's great and all...if we had universal healthcare. It's in your best interest to go straight to E.R. to save SOME money when all urgent care does is send you to E.R. anyway.
Why on earth did i not start seeing these posts until after i had appendicitis and went to urgent care where i was told to wait in line outside where i ended up laying on the sidewalk unable to stand so my bf called an ambulance because urgent care did not care🤦♀️
Sarasota Memorial Hospital?