A Woman in Georgia received $700 Bill After Waiting for 7 Hours in Hospital Without Getting a Treatment

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Hospital - Brandon Holmes Via Unsplash
Hospital - Brandon Holmes Via Unsplash

A woman in Georgia, U.S. says she went to an emergency room to get a head injury treatment. However, after waiting for about seven hours, she left without being seen, according to local news station WAGA.

After a few weeks, Taylor Davis received a $700 bill for the visit.

“I sat there for seven hours. There’s no way I should be sitting in an emergency room.. an emergency room for seven hours,” Taylor Davis told WAGA in Atlanta about the July hospital visit. “I didn’t get my vitals taken, nobody called my name. I wasn’t seen at all.”

Mrs. Davis thought it’s a mistake. She contacted the hospital to inquire about the bill and the representative told her that it’s a hospital protocol. “even if you’re just walking in and you’re not seen.”

“When you type in your social, that’s it,” Davis told WAGA. “You’re going to get charged regardless.”

Patients pay for an “Emergy Room Visit Fee”

The hospital told her that this is an “emergency room visit fee” or “facility fee,” a common expense seen on some hospital bills to cover the facility’s overhead. Ted Doolittle, a healthcare advocate in Connecticut, said the facility fee is “somewhat akin to a cover charge” at a club, according to an NPR report from September 2019.