Author: stlplace

Reading Time: 7 minutes

中文翻译（主要是谷歌翻译的，我做了一点修改）在这里。

This is probably the 3rd time we stayed in a hospital in America – if we count the time we spent in the Mercy for our 2 babies delivery (baby number 1 and number 2). Last week in my blog I talked about our little baby got sick. As she didn’t get better, we end up in the St. Louis Children’s hospital ER on Monday 9/9, and followed by inpatient care between 9/12 and yesterday 9/16. She is better and out of hospital now. The main concern was her fever and pneumonia.

Again it’s not the 1st time I go to hospital in America. I have been to ER once myself in year 2006 when I broke my chin at Stacy park and I drove myself to the Mercy ER shortly after. I recall when I was a teen, after watching some TV or movies, and sometimes I sort of romanticize “staying in hospital” (different TV or movies scene than the ER TV series here in the USA). Also probably I hoped for a break of school because my middle school and high school years are not easy.

In recent years especially last year, during my visit to China, I went to hospital everyday to see my mom (she was in the hospital). Also I saw her in IV infusion this year (note IV infusion is much more common in China than int he USA, even for the kids, separate topic); and I did IV infusion last year and a bunch of tests after falling from the ladder (advice: be careful when climbing ladder, using proper technique and safety cautions). I think my attitude towards hospital stay is more rational now: it’s a necessary evil we have to deal with. I am hoping to be away from hospital as much as practical.

Below is something new I noticed this time around.

Rounds

Doctors, nurses and personal care technicians (tech) kept families in the loop most of the time. Also, there are the morning “rounds” in which all the caregivers including the residents (the doctors in training) will have a discussion on the current status, and ask parents if there are any questions. This is somewhat like the “standup” in the agile world. I think it’s good.

Tablet

In year 2010 I recall the Mercy hospital room has traditional phone.

Fast forward 14 years, at the children’s I do notice the SamSung tablet in the room, and it can be used both for ordering meals as well as watching TVs (we didn’t watch this time). It also has some games similar to what we saw on Boeing 737 Max and 787 – our two kids played a bit together, and our little one played some alone too. I remember in the old days the meal is ordered from phone.

Electronic Medical Records

Another new development is Electronic Medical Records (EMR), and BJC (parent org for the Children’s) implemented Epic/MyChart in recent years. Adding my daughter’s EMR proxy access to my account took a few days: I simply requested for it and wait. I got my own MyChart set up at BJC a few years ago when I went there for the Covid vaccine (the Pfizer version). I received the access in about a week or so (thinking they may have manually looked into my relationship with my daughter).

Personally I like the electronic version of medical records much better than papers. Because I am not the best organized person for paperwork, as you can read from my earlier blog post – I need to better organize things.

I noticed our pediatricians office has a patient portal too. TAUC has a much simpler website but I recall once I downloaded the flu vaccine record for work. I also talked about my personal visit experience here last year – after an unexpected fall. Their wait time is quite long recently – the main reason we didn’t take our baby there this time. But I do have past interactions with doc there and I think he is good. This reminds me another thing: I need to look for a PCP again because the PCP I saw earlier this year moved away.

Customer Service etc.

Concierge (Customer Service Specialist): noticed concierge came to us when we were waiting at the ER waiting area on Monday 9/9, and she offered water, snacks etc. We saw customer service specialist during the hospital stay (inpatient) later as well.

Family Center: it’s at the 3rd floor of children’s hospital. I saw volunteers. They have coffee, drink, snacks and laundry services.

Ronald McDonald House

Education (missing school): the education specialist came on Monday 9/16 asked if we need anything school related.

Therapy Dog: this is probably one of the highlights during our little baby’s stay.

Appointment Helper for PCP (Primary Care Physician, or Pediatrician in this case).

Overall they are trying to make the place nice, welcoming etc. More like a hotel, vs a traditional hospital.

Parking, Meals, and Odds and Ends

Parking is free for the parents. One thing: don’t use the parent badge directly if you go in the 1st time using your car, which is more likely in the case of St. Louis metro area parents. The reason is if you come in using parent badge, you won’t have entry ticket – which is handy when you leave the hospital. Another reason is we need to turn in the parent badge when we leave. Today I had to use #lostTicket feature because I gave my entry ticket to my wife. It’s not a big deal, $16 is the cost of the parking fee. I noticed quite a few people (hospital workers?) parked along the Kingshighway Blvd across the street. Probably to save some parking fees.

Meal is included for the patients and two caregivers: it seems breakfast and dinner at the cafeteria, with some limitations; and lunch is available via a phone call. We didn’t order lunch btw. Our baby ordered her meals via the SamSung tablet.

There are some outdoor areas on the rooftop (8th floor) for kids/families to walk around.

The window view from the 10th floor room is also pretty good: we are facing kings highway blvd and can see forest park and nearby buildings in the area. I will attach couple pictures of the window view shortly. I also walked at the forest park once; and went to the shake shack at Euclid road once (I went there often when I was working at Cortex in year 2019 and 2020 before pandemic).

Bills

I just paid all the urgent care and pediatricians’ bills on myuhc.com via the HSA account (and SSO). Personally, I like this electronic version of dashboard/payments better than the good old paper-based approach. Guess how much I paid so far (note this is before the ER/Inpatient bills from the children’s hospital, which I estimate to be in thousands)? I paid about $900 so far.

Lessons learned

One thing I learned from all this, I think, is that choose urgent care place wisely, or try to see pediatrician 1st. On two occasions, Monday Labor Day 9/2 and Sunday 9/8 I took our little one to two urgent care places, and they cost about $300 per trip, and the 1st trip (9/2) didn’t diagnose the pneumonia (or maybe she didn’t have it at the time, but we didn’t do X-ray on 9/2, and she was diagnosed on 9/5 Thursday at Pediatrician office).

Also not all urgent care places are the same. In my old and current neighborhood, I recommend going to the Total Access Urgent Care (TAUC) at Creve Coeur (next to the Noodles co and Walgreens), and the St. Lukes Urgent Care (next to the CVS). The reason I didn’t go to TAUC 1st this time is mainly the wait time: 1st time it suggested about 7 hours wait time, the second time about 2 hours. But again sometimes, maybe a lot of times good things (and good doctors) are worth to wait.

How much will be overall bill cost? I am making a wild guess: between ER and the inpatient at Children’s Hospital, I am guessing I likely need to pay $5000 to $10,000, after the insurance discount. Over the years the US healthcare cost skyrocketed as well as the insurance premium. I recall back probably in year 2001, more than 20 years ago, I only paid about $10 or $15 for the tonsil removal surgery (for my then significant other). The hospital bills for our two babies are about $1,500 for normal delivery and hospital stay (2 nights, if my memory is correct) at Mercy St. Louis. Regarding ER, I mentioned I went to Mercy ER in year 2006, and the bill was about $800 then. The insurance company initially didn’t want to pay: I called them and they paid eventually.

Last but not least, if you like to read more, I talked about American Healthcare systems and hospitals in the past (here are post one, two, and three in a series, also this one).

(Update 09-19-2024) It appears that I got a scammer call yesterday (luckily, I didn’t give you much information). The number is 763 656 5847 (I just did a google search). Anyone the caller claims to be UnitedHealthCare (that’s also from the Caller ID on my iPhone). And the topic is around nurse line or nurse manager (the caller knows my kid’s name and my employer’s name; this leads to me think they are not total 100% scammers). I did some google around this topic too, and here is some of the reddit thread I found (one and two). I just blocked the phone number. Better to err on the cautious side 🙂

(Update 09-25-2024) The 1st batch of bills arrived at myuhc.com, and I paid them all – 9 bills total, and the total is under $1,000 from my side, the insurance company also paid some (after discount).

(Update 10-01-2024) The total for the hospital stay is $1,228.40 so far, per myChart – I paid all via myuhc.com

(Update 10-02-2024) Got the hospital bill, I paid $175.50 via myuhc while the uhc paid more than $1,579.50.

(Update 10-03-2024) I paid hospital $34.06. I think this is likely the tail end of the bills.

(Update 10-05-2024) I summarized my out of pocket expense for the hospital bills: $2,017.16 and the subtotal of pediatrician (3 visits total) and 2 urgent care visits: $959.49. Total is $2,976.65 so far. I believe most bills are created and paid. Again the most important thing is make sure we are healthy.

(Update 10-07-2024) One more bill from the children’s: Plan Paid $28,460.68; You (I) Paid $481.77 => this makes total hospital bill to $2,498.93; also this makes the total out of pocket pay (adding $959.49) to be $3,458.42. I think we may hit a limit or something like that for out of pocket expense for this year.