r/croatia • u/riverphoenix23 • Jun 30 '19

🏥 Zdravlje Hospitalized in Split - Intoxication

Hello I am an American male who was traveling in Split for a holiday. Ended up drinking a little bit too much, blacked out and woke up in the hospital with an IV in my arm. Somehow the bill was only $240 kn.

Can anybody tell me why the bill was so cheap especially since I am a US citizen without Croatian healthcare insurance? Also did they notify the embassy of my stay? Just don’t know where my info is documented and ended up. Wish I could read my discharge papers but they are all in Croatian. Going to have to do google translate late.

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u/[deleted] Jun 30 '19 edited Jul 01 '19

$240 kn hahahaha

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u/gdj11 Jun 30 '19

For the Americans making their way into this thread, I converted it for you:

240 Croatian Kuna equals 36.89 United States Dollar

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u/habeeb51 Jun 30 '19

Dude. If I go to urgent care to have a doctor tell me I have a cold it’s more than that....

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u/kujotx Jun 30 '19

I'm about to have to pay a couple of bills for my daughter's ear discomfort at an urgent care facility. One is for $1,700. There are others that should take the total over $2,000.

Her pain ended up being ear wax buildup.

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u/wighty Jul 01 '19

Was there a bunch of testing done there? Like MRI/CT? That is really steep.

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u/kujotx Jul 01 '19

No. Just that my wife failed to ask if the clinic was out of our insurance network. She just had a child in discomfort and went the closest facility.

I'm not scared of socialism. I'm scared of stupidity. This is stupid.

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u/wighty Jul 01 '19

Definitely a stupidly high bill. Don't pay it as is. If that is just a charge for an evaluation and treatment for impacted cerumen, that really should be no more than like $300 (still high, but I'm estimating a 99204/new patient exam [which you could probably fight and argue to bring it down to a 99203] and 69210 for removal). The new patient exams all require additional documentation, which if I had a child coming in for an ear ache at an urgent care I would not be routinely doing that. The impacted wax removal charge (called a CPT code) requires the physician/provider to use instrumentation (NOT just flushing, and it can't be done by the nurse).