We’ve started getting EOBs for Jay’s knee surgery, and I’m finding it very interesting to see first-hand what all these medical procedures cost. The anesthesia was billed at $1155, (our Humana network price was $748) and the initial physical therapy that was done on the first day after the surgery was billed at $637 (reduced to $573 by Humana).
We’re very focused on Jay’s physical therapy. We know that it’s a key component of the whole process, and that without it the surgery will have been for naught. But it sure does seem expensive when you really look at what we’re getting. The actual surgery obviously had to be done by a surgeon. But Jay and I are doing most of his physical therapy ourselves, and he’s progressing very well. Our health insurance pays for 20 pt visits in a year, so we’re going to make sure that we don’t go over that limit. In order to get the most out of his therapy, we’re going once a week, and doing physical therapy at home the other six days of the week. The therapist who worked with him the day after surgery taught me how to move his kneecap and the surrounding tendons to prevent scar tissue buildup, and I spend about half an hour a day doing those exercises. In addition, Jay spends about 45 minutes each day doing the series of therapy exercises that we’ve been shown during his sessions.
We are glad that we’ve had the guidance of a trained physical therapist to show us exactly what exercises Jay should be doing. But $637 seems a bit excessive. The therapists who worked with us would come over and get Jay started with an exercise and would then sometimes go to work with another patient while Jay completed the reps on his own.
We’ve gotten a lot out of the physical therapy Jay has been doing, but the majority of his sessions have been here at home, with just the two of us working on his knee. And it’s hard to figure out how the therapy session he got the day after his surgery could be worth $637. Our health insurance deductible is $3000 and then our policy will pay 100% of the charges (in the case of physical therapy, this benefit would run out after 20 visits). So I guess the price of the physical therapy really doesn’t directly impact us, since we’d have to meet our $3000 deductible one way or another. But seeing that amount on the EOB was still a surprise to me. I can’t imagine how frustrating it would be if we didn’t have health insurance and were trying to pay for this whole thing out of pocket. I think we’d have a lot fewer physical therapy visits if that were the case.
