<\/p>\n
Jeffery Stephens was in excruciating pain when he went to the emergency room at Mercy Regional Medical Center in May to have a speck of what may have been metal taken out of his eye.<\/p>\n
Now, he deeply regrets the visit after receiving nearly $3,000 in legal and medical bills.<\/p>\n
\u201cEven though people would look at a couple grand and say: \u2018That\u2019s nothing.\u2019 I don\u2019t get paid that much money,\u201d said Stephens, a fabricator and mechanic who lives in a school bus.<\/p>\n
In retrospect, he said he wishes he had gone to an urgent care clinic because it could have saved him hundreds of dollars and prevented a hearing at La Plata County Court over bills he cannot afford.<\/p>\n
Emergency room care is the highest-priced care a patient can receive, and if a patient has a minor condition and can pause to consider other options for care, such as an urgent care clinic, it could mean major savings, said Joe Hanel, a spokesman with the Colorado Health Institute<\/a>.<\/p>\n About 40 percent of the emergency room visits in Colorado during 2015 were avoidable, according to a study by the Center for Improving Value in Health Care, a Denver-based nonprofit that promotes alternative health care payment models. Avoiding unneeded ER visits could result in $800 million annual savings for commercial insurance companies and their customers, said Cari Frank, a spokeswoman for the center.<\/p>\n Emergency room visits are expensive because hospitals must cover the cost of keeping a high-tech facility running 24\/7 with trained emergency medical physicians on staff, Hanel said.<\/p>\n However, patients are not always able to think through cost-effective options or clinics may be closed, Hanel said.<\/p>\n \u201cIn an urgent or emergency situation, people are going to do what needs to be done to take care of the immediate injury or sickness,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Bayfield resident Nick Carico faced circumstances similar to Stephens when he got dust in his eye that scratched his cornea 13 months ago. After hours of \u201cridiculous discomfort and pain,\u201d he went to the emergency room at Mercy but was informed by a hospital employee he should go somewhere else for less expensive care, he said.<\/p>\n His treatment was $150 at Durango Urgent Care, said Carico, an acquaintance of Stephens. The Durango Herald<\/em> obtained the bill from Stephens to verify its accuracy.<\/p>\n Stephens said he questioned his bill first with Mercy staff members and then tried to fight it in court using Carico\u2019s bill as evidence that he was overcharged. But he has been unsuccessful and the unpaid bills have worried him for months.<\/p>\n \u201cI can\u2019t sleep, my work has suffered, my mind goes blank, (it is) hard to make common decisions,\u201d he said in a written statement he shared with the Herald<\/em>.<\/p>\n In December, he took his frustration to the street, protesting Mercy, Centura Health and the medical system in general for about a month at the intersection of U.S. Highway 160 and Three Springs Boulevard.<\/p>\n During his personal campaign, patients have pulled over to talk with him about medical expenses and other struggles, and it has proved to him that the U.S. health care system is broken, he said.<\/p>\n He said he is specifically concerned that he was billed $741.10 by the hospital and $418 by the independent physician\u2019s group contracted to Mercy for removing the object from his eye. He describes the practice as double billing.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s wrong. It\u2019s just so wrong,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Mercy could not provide comment on Stephens\u2019 case because of patient privacy laws, said hospital spokesman David Bruzzese.<\/p>\n However, all patients sign a consent form stating they may receive separate bills for facility fees and professional fees before receiving treatment, Bruzzese said in an email to the Herald<\/em>.<\/p>\n It is not an uncommon practice for patients to be billed by the hospital for use of the facility and for the services of the doctor, Frank said.<\/p>\n