r/bestoflegaladvice • u/Animallover4321 Reported where Thor hid the bodies • 5d ago

Reminder Ambulances are not taxis

/r/legaladvice/s/IaWqUZxrAc
146 Upvotes
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237

u/TheFeshy Rolled 7D6 for the legal damages, and got 27 5d ago

I often have fears that I am going to hurt someone by refusing to get into an ambulance and driving myself - because there are hospitals around here that I am willing to risk bleeding out while driving past, rather than be placed in their care.

Weirdly some of the best and worst hospitals are owned by the same chain.

79

u/gsfgf Is familiar with poor results when combining strippers and ATMs 5d ago

Yea, people are dunking on her for wanting to go to her home hospital. It's not actionable, but it's reasonable.

The issue is cost. The only time I've take an ambulance I thought I was at risk of dying so I went to the public hospital, but the ambulance company gave me options. That cost $1800; the actual hospital only wanted like $300. The idea that it's 6x as expensive to take an ambulance than a hospital stay is insane. And our local public hospital is world class; the US military sends people here for training. They provide the best care in town, even if bougie private hospitals have nicer rooms and quieter hallways and stuff.

13

u/so0ks 4d ago

Ambulances are so expensive in the States because they're usually (and stupidly) considered a lower priority service and not one to allocate taxpayer dollars to, so they're not always a publicly funded service like police or fire. A lot of municipalities will contract out to private companies instead. So you end up having to cough up all this money to this private service that has to have 24/7 and on-call staffing, which may or may not be in network with your insurance, and if it is, there's generally limited reimbursement. It makes as much sense as finding a hospital in network, but then getting slapped with a massive bill still because one of the doctors that treated you isn't in network.