Being a victim of rape costs an average of $3,500 in medical bills

Re:Being a victim of rape costs an average of $3,500 in medi... by pizza234 on Saturday September 17, 2022 @03:15PM (#32880484)

The title is clickbait; the bill total is not what is generally paid by the patients (whether nothing be paid at all in such cases, is a separate topic):

> On average, hospital emergency departments charged $3,551 for urgent medical care coded as caused by sexual violence. People who were sexually assaulted while pregnant faced even steeper bills, with an average of $4,553. Uninsured victims or those who chose to pay themselves were served bills that averaged $3,673.

> the study found that insured victims paid an average of 14 percent of their bills out-of-pocket, which for the average bill would work out to nearly $500.

> [...] Among the 112,844 records, an estimated 17,842 victims were expected to pay their hospital bills themselves.

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Re:Being a victim of rape costs an average of $3,500 in medi... by verall on Saturday September 17, 2022 @04:00PM (#32881000)

Your own quotes suggest around 15% of victims are expected to pay the value quotes in the headline on average.

I wouldn't call that clickbait...

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Being a victim of rape costs an average of $3,500 in medi... by pizza234 on Monday September 19, 2022 @04:35AM (#32895782)

The title can be interpreted in two ways.

It could be interpreted as the cost to the end payer (either patient or insurance). In this case, it's clickbait, because it doesn't represent what the patients pay, but still, it causes a stir, because readers will think that it does (as a matter of fact, some comments make this assumption).

It could be otherwise interpreted as the cost to the patients. In this case, since only a fraction of the users pay the whole bill, and the rest pays a fraction of the bill, the average is far below the full bill. For this reason, this is also a case of clickbait.

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Re:Being a victim of rape costs an average of $3,500 in medi... by peyton on Saturday September 17, 2022 @04:11PM (#32881118)

“served bills” is not the same thing as “costs” when it comes to processing uninsured claims. The headline is clickbait.

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Re:Being a victim of rape costs an average of $3,500 in medi... by MisterSandman on Saturday September 17, 2022 @07:45PM (#32882794)

It is not clickbait, it does cost that much in medical bills, and 85% of people will have their insurance cover a part of that.

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Re:Being a victim of rape costs an average of $3,500 in medi... by As_You_Wish on Sunday September 18, 2022 @03:36AM (#32885346)

It's clickbait if the headline implies that the person pays 100% of the cost. The title should read, in your way of saying it, "Medical Bills Are $3500, but Most Pay $500 and Insurance Covers the Rest for 85% of Women."

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Re:Being a victim of rape costs an average of $3,500 in medi... by beej71 on Sunday September 18, 2022 @12:31PM (#32888885)

Even so, most Americans can't afford an unexpected $400 medical bill.

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