Emergency Room Charges

The cost of a visit to an emergency room at the hospital. The trend has been to require more and more of these costs to be covered by the patient

By 2017, virtually all Marketplace plans required the deductible first be paid and after that a coinsurance also applied to ER costs.

Gone are the days of visiting the ER and having a $75 or $100 copay.

Now if you have not met your deductible you can expect to pay it on your first emergency room visit.

• The situation is a little better if you are on Medicare. Many Advantage plans still have an ER copay.

This shift of charges to the patient saves insurance companies money.  Unfortunately, people with high deductibles are afraid to go to the emergency room even when they have life threatening events like a possible heart attack.