Re: Need Help Deciding......New Member

[Guest guest]

My single level fusion, for hospital and surgery alone, was about $70k...in

2003...at a large city teaching hospital.

Do you have a surgeon picked out that you are going with? I would ask him the

cost of his services as the surgeon, then call the hospital and ask for the

costs of the OR, recovery, hospitalization, meds, IV start up, etc. Maybe even

the surgeon knows this. Even a ball park figure is better than nothing, and

prices vary according to area.

One thing...when I first got hurt, my WC lawyer said 6 figures for a career

ending injury from WC. We settled 4 years late for $44k, of which the lawyer got

half. Was not worth the hell they (WC) put me thru.

Darlene Ewing <darzplace@...> wrote:

But I can't seem to find any information on how much the surgery

itself should cost, which is the remaining factor in figuring how much a

settlement would be. Can anyone give me a ballpark figure?

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[Guest guest]

darlene, my onelevel fusion L3-L4 with laminectomy on may 22nd, 5 days in

the hospital came to $115,000 i think. just for surgery and hospital.

good luck. some people, like judges, are real assholes. marsha

[Guest guest]

darlene, i like your positive attitude and calmness. i hope everything

works out well and to you and your husband's advantage. marsha

In a message dated 10/14/2006 12:29:21 PM Eastern Standard Time,

darzplace@... writes:

This was my first reaction too but after research and thot, this judge

may have done us a favor. If Rob had gotten the surgery, took the

small settlement (around $18K) he would have been entitled too at the

end then got re-injured, we would have been up the proverbial creek.

This way he gets a decent settlement we can use to create something to

produce an income for us to live on if the surgery just happens to not

work and still gets the surgery too. If the judge had agreed that day,

we wouldn't have had the opportunity to examine this option. Good

things happen in strange ways sometimes. I've learned not to question

it too much. Darlene

[Guest guest]

I have to pay Aetna $800.00 a month which is coming from my SSD. Which means I

have nothing to live on kinda thing but I have no choice in complete reality

Bleecker I agree shoot the judges etc.

Hugs

BLEECKERST10012@... wrote:

darlene, my onelevel fusion L3-L4 with laminectomy on may 22nd, 5 days

in

the hospital came to $115,000 i think. just for surgery and hospital.

good luck. some people, like judges, are real assholes. marsha

[Guest guest]

His doctor is Dr Josue at Ohio State University teaching

hospital. He is one of the top staff members, a major trauma surgeon

and one of the top rated docs in the U.S. We are very lucky because

we got him by pure happenstance. His explanation about why the 4th

level was needed makes sense to us and is in Rob's best interest.

His secretary, Jill, is in the process of trying to find out what

CPT codes he will use to bill the procedure, then the hospital

billing office said they could help us. But that is going to take

some time and we are being pressured now so I'm trying to find out

an approximate cost thru other methods. I appreciate the feedback.

It's beginning to look like Rob's surgery costs for the doc and

hospital could run upwards of around $100K. Add to that the cost of

rehab therapy, another year of being off work, and the probable

third surgery to separate the nerves, and it's beginning to look

like more than 250 grand. Our lawyer is talking settlement around

$125K and I seriously am beginning to think that's kind of low. But

one advantage to settling now is that medicare would take up and pay

for the surgery in about 18 months, where the workmen's comp battle

could drag out over 2 - 3 years before he could get approved and by

then the surgery may not be as effective in restoring use of his

back. And we would wind up with very little monetary compensation to

fall back on. Sort of settling late like you did. (and by the way I

was sorry to hear of that. Seems like wc is never about doing the

right thing) So we are leaning strongly towards this settlement, I

just want it to be a fair one to us. I appreciate your feedback in

this matter. $70K for a single level gives me a base to figure from

because one article I read gave a figure of $5000 for each

additional level with instrumentation but it didn't give a base

level. So 70 plus 15...... Around $85 plus the extra stuff the doc

plans and I come up with $95 - $100K for this years cost. Thanks

for your help. Darlene

> But I can't seem to find any information on how much

the surgery itself should cost, which is the remaining factor in

figuring how much a

> settlement would be. Can anyone give me a ballpark figure?

>

>

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[Guest guest]

HOLY **** !!!!! No wonder the insurance company is pushing to settle

fast and low. Thanks for the info. Darlene

>

> darlene, my onelevel fusion L3-L4 with laminectomy on may 22nd, 5

days in

> the hospital came to $115,000 i think. just for surgery and

hospital.

> good luck. some people, like judges, are real assholes. marsha

>

>

>

[Guest guest]

This was my first reaction too but after research and thot, this judge

may have done us a favor. If Rob had gotten the surgery, took the

small settlement (around $18K) he would have been entitled too at the

end then got re-injured, we would have been up the proverbial creek.

This way he gets a decent settlement we can use to create something to

produce an income for us to live on if the surgery just happens to not

work and still gets the surgery too. If the judge had agreed that day,

we wouldn't have had the opportunity to examine this option. Good

things happen in strange ways sometimes. I've learned not to question

it too much. Darlene

>

> I agree shoot the judges etc.

[Guest guest]

Thank you for the well wishes Marsha. As for the attitude, I've been

around the bad block too many times with my fibro plus a bad back of

my own. I'm too tired to be anything but calm, LOL! And we've decided

we're gonna come out of this GOOD for a change. My life story is too

long for here, but the first 40 years were fantastic. The last 10 have

been something else. Not sure what, just something else and it was a

BAD something else. It's time for that to end! It's time something

good happened for us and I'm just stubborn enough to make it so!

Darlene

>

>

> darlene, i like your positive attitude and calmness. i hope

everything

> works out well and to you and your husband's advantage. marsha

[Guest guest]

I had a triple lamenectomy in Sept of 1998 and that was 20K.. My triple tier

fusion in May of 1999 was 195K But I had an infection after surgery that

required a PICC line for 16 weeks. The IV meds I was taking was costing 6K a

day.....It sure added up.....But that figure was surgery, hospital, the PICC

Line supplies, PT, Meds and follow up for two years.......I had both my

surgeries at Mount Carmel West hospital in Columbus,Ohio..

Tonja

Re: Need Help Deciding......New Member

My single level fusion, for hospital and surgery alone, was about $70k...in

2003...at a large city teaching hospital.

Do you have a surgeon picked out that you are going with? I would ask him the

cost of his services as the surgeon, then call the hospital and ask for the

costs of the OR, recovery, hospitalization, meds, IV start up, etc. Maybe even

the surgeon knows this. Even a ball park figure is better than nothing, and

prices vary according to area.

One thing...when I first got hurt, my WC lawyer said 6 figures for a career

ending injury from WC. We settled 4 years late for $44k, of which the lawyer got

half. Was not worth the hell they (WC) put me thru.

Darlene Ewing <darzplace@...> wrote:

But I can't seem to find any information on how much the surgery itself should

cost, which is the remaining factor in figuring how much a

settlement would be. Can anyone give me a ballpark figure?

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[Guest guest]

Thank you, this info is REALLY helpful cause Rob's surgery is going

to be done in the same city. Glad you made it thru the infection and

all the other probs. I gotta say, I don't like Mt Carmel very much.

I've had several bad experiences with that place and the last one I

caused a BIG investigation. One of the docs said my mom was a no

code and they were gonna just let her die anyway if she stopped

breathing so what did I want him to do. He didn't know he was

talking to a nurse and medical student till I ripped off a list of

orders then blasted his butt all over the ER. When I was done the

place was deathly quiet and a new doc was on mom's case. All she had

was a simple UTI and chest cold for cryin' out loud! Anyway, after I

had a talk with the hospital administrator, that doc was

investigated for several ER cases that had resulted in death. Boy

did I open a can of worms! Come to think of it, that was 1998. The

hospital may be better now, but I still don't trust it. So I'm glad

you came thru ok. Darlene

> But I can't seem to find any information on how much the surgery

itself should cost, which is the remaining factor in figuring how

much a

> settlement would be. Can anyone give me a ballpark figure?

>

> Recent Activity

>

> 9

> New Members

>

> Visit Your Group

>