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US Woman Charged Extra For 'Brief Emotion' During Her Medical Examination

US Woman Charged Extra For 'Brief Emotion' During Her Medical Examination

The US healthcare debate spilled over onto Twitter after a woman jokingly shared her bills for treatment

Tom Wood

Tom Wood

A woman in the USA was shocked when she checked her medical bill after a routine physical examination to discover that she'd been charged for 'brief emotion'.

It turns out that this is more of a serious issue than it seems, and we'll get into it, but let's start with the funny part, right?

Midge, a woman living in the USA, where there is no universal healthcare and people are charged for their medical treatments, went along for a routine exam when she discovered the strange looking charge.

On her bill, she saw - alongside 'physician serv' - which we'll assume means physician service, and 'surgical serv' - surgical service? - she was the words 'brief emotion'.

Twitter

Clearly amused - and no doubt a bit shocked at being billed for the service - she tweeted: "Mole removal: $223

"Crying: extra."

Since she shared the tweet, it has been liked more than 33,000 times and received hundreds of comments.

Underneath, she wrote: "I didn't even get a damn sticker.

"Is a lollipop too much to ask?"

However, despite her humorous approach to the whole thing, there is a more serious issue at play here.

She was actually being charged for a 'brief emotional-behavioural assessment'.

Midge told LADbible: "This is basically what it is - a 'depression screening' which I think is definitely important but if it's so important it should be fully covered by insurance.

"It was part of a routine annual physical - I didn't know at the time that it wasn't covered by insurance. It was basically 10 or less questions.

"So - it wasn't actually a fee for crying but rather an emotional evaluation."

This raises a difficult question, as - important though it definitely is to assess people's mental wellbeing - doctors in the USA have been accused in the past of adding extra charges, or - as Midge put it - 'padding their bills by using these assessments'.

Whether or not this is the case here is up for debate, but legislation was passed by former President Donald Trump that was aimed at protecting patients from surprise medical bills.

The fight had raged for years, and saw doctors and medical providers squaring off against the insurance companies.

In the end, the doctors and providers won.

The Hill reported a source from within the health care industry as having said: "This was easily the largest lobbying and public affairs battle in the last several years.

"The big health insurers and employer groups placed a massive bet... They were ultimately outmanoeuvred on the political front."

However, the trade group representing insurance companies, America's Health Insurance Plans, said that patients could be protected by fair market-based prices for healthcare based upon local rates, negotiated locally.

They said: "Private-equity firms will continue to find ways to exploit the arbitration process to price gouge patients and raise health care costs for everyone."

The healthcare debate in the USA continues to rage on, with those requiring healthcare still paying for their treatment, either through insurance, or from their own pockets.

LADbible has approached the healthcare provider for a comment.

Featured Image Credit: Oksana Krasiuk / Alamy Stock Photo

Topics: Viral, Money, Funny, US News, Twitter, Weird, Health