Physician Lauren Hughes was heading to see patients at a clinic about 20 miles from her Denver home in February when another driver T-boned her Subaru, totaling it. She was taken by ambulance to the closest hospital, Platte Valley Hospital.
A shaken Hughes was examined in the emergency room, where she was diagnosed with bruising, a deep cut on her knee, and a broken ankle. Physicians recommended immediate surgical repair, she said.
“They said: ‘You have this fracture and a big gaping wound in your knee. We need to take you to the OR to wash it out and make sure there’s no infection,’” she said. “As a clinician, I thought, ‘Yes.’”
She was taken to the operating room in the early evening, then admitted to the hospital overnight.
A friend took her home the next day.
Then the bills came.
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The Medical Procedure
Surgeons cleaned the cut on her right knee, which had hit her car’s dashboard, and realigned a broken bone in her right ankle, stabilizing it with metal screws. Surgery is typically recommended when a broken bone is deemed unlikely to heal properly with only a cast.
The Final Bill
$63,976.35, charged by the hospital — which was not in-network with the insurance plan she got through her job — for the surgery and overnight stay.
The Problem: Should I Stay or Should I Go?
Hughes’ insurer, Anthem, fully covered the nearly $2,400 ambulance ride and some smal …