Guaranteed Healthcare

RN Cares For Physician Husband But Cannot Believe Costs

“My husband is a physician – who, by the way, has never missed a day of work – and is also on dialysis for a failed kidney transplant.  I'm a nurse, and have been doing his home hemodialysis for the past year,” said Daniella Pigott of Birmingham, Alabama.  “Each month our insurance company sends us a copy of the billing statement.  Remember, I am the one who does his treatments at home for three hours a day, five days a week. I also draw all of his labs, spin them in a centrifuge, and then take them to the lab. I also give my husband his medications IV.”  

“Once you are placed on dialysis you get Medicare parts A and B so that means the dialysis companies can also bill Medicare for what our insurance company does not cover. So, you may be asking, what is the big deal? Well, our monthly bills are $49,000. We do not have to pay that out of our pockets each month, but someone (our insurance company and Medicare) is.”

Daniella and her husband went on vacation to the Bahamas recently and learned they’d have to pay “out of pocket” for their own expenses. “I was so worried that it was going to cost more than our whole vacation. Since we were on vacation my husband only did his treatments three times a week (Monday, Wednesday and Friday). Our entire bill for his treatments was $600. Yes, only $300 a treatment. That was not a co-pay, but the actual total cost for his treatment. The equipment in the Bahamas is exactly the same as the equipment in the centers here in the U.S. The nurses are registered nurses, and there was even a doctor on staff at all times – which is not so in every dialysis center in the U.S. So, if we lived in the Bahamas and my husband got dialysis in a center three times a week it would only cost $3,600 a month, less than a tenth of what our costs are at home? How is that possible?” Daniella questioned.

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Sponsored by the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee

Eighty-two percent of Americans think the U.S. healthcare system should be fundamentally changed or completely rebuilt (Commonwealth Fund, Aug. 7, 2008). America's nurses know that only single-payer, improved and expanded Medicare for all will fix our broken system and the tragedy of our devastated families. HR 676, by U.S. Rep John Conyers, is the most comprehensive, cost effective way to achieve guaranteed healthcare for all.

For more information, or to contact this patient: Liz Jacobs, RN  510/273-2232.