Ryan Grassley discovered a perplexing charge on a hospital bill for the recent birth of his son: Nearly $40 for “skin to skin” contact after his wife gave birth via cesarean section.
Amused by the bill, he posted a picture of it on Reddit this week and commented: “I had to pay $39.35 to hold my baby after he was born.”
The post set off a flurry of outrage and consternation on Reddit. Nearly 12,000 people commented, with many sharing their own stories of what they said were bizarre or ridiculous medical charges.
“A lot of people like to be shocked and outraged by things,” Grassley said in an interview Wednesday. “Today, It happened to be my hospital bill.”
The fee technically wasn’t for Grassley to hold his baby, but to have an additional nurse present in the hospital recovery room for C-section patients to ensure the mother and baby were safe, said Janet Frank, spokeswoman for Utah Valley Hospital in Provo, Utah.
“There is never a charge for a patient to hold their baby,” Frank said.
Grassley said that he wasn’t mad about the bill or seeking reimbursement but thought posting it would make people laugh. He’s also hopeful the attention the bill attracted might lead hospitals to be more precise about their billing charges.
He said he and his wife were pleased with the doctors and nurses who handled the Sept. 4 birth of their second child, a boy named Samuel.
A GoFundMe account Grasley set up to pay the bill brought in $60 by Wednesday afternoon and he has a plan for the surplus.
“Any money donated over the $39.35 will be put toward a vasectomy because I never want to go through these sleepless new baby nights again,” Grassley wrote on GoFundMe.
He sent Frank an email on Tuesday apologizing for ruining her day as media attention about the bill intensified.
“Maybe it should have said, ‘Sorry for your ruining your week,'” Grassley said.
The Associated Press contributed to this article.
All these Hospital’s charge for thing’s that are not needed.. I was hit with a bill for 7 thousand dollar’s because a Doctor told my wife that they wouldn’t release me until I had a MRI and a cat scan.. They also charged me for x ray’s, when in fact all they had to do was give me some oxygen. Plus the Fire Department sent me a bill for over 2 thousand for responding and then taking me the three miles to the Hosp. Pretty sad that I have to pay, but if I was here illegally, I wouldn’t have to pay… Now HRC and Obummer want’s to bring another 100 thousand into this country, Can we afford them, not only NO, but Hell NO>> Let’s take care of our own before we feed the rest of the world.
Well if you go to the hospital and get an x-ray done as you can see later they send you a separate bill from virtual radiology. These thieves send your x-rays via internet to India to have them read there for a few dollars then the doctor there sends the result back electronically once here they charge you an arm and a leg to give you that result. Its a big business and the AMA dont do anything about it. In another words they e mail your pict to India they pay two or three dollars to the indian doctor once they e mail back the result then they charge you 170 dollars for reading the x-ray. Those doctors there are not certified to practice medicine in US but since they are not in US the virtual radiology can get away with it
I had an upper GI x-ray done the insurance company paid 265.00 to virtual radiology to read the X-RAY now they are billing me another 75.00 and these thieve bastards even put me on collection. Im going to call the insurance company and then ill call virtual radiology and tell them to bill their mother for those 75 dollars