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We don't call 911 (cdn.imgchest.com)
submitted 3 years ago by to c/greentext@lemmy.ml
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[–] 39 points 3 years ago (3 children)

This reminded me, does anyone know what the profit margin on ambulance trips are? They must surely be outrageous, but to what degree?

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  • [–] 37 points 3 years ago (2 children)

    Considering they pay the EMTs minimum wage, probably even more magnificent than you'd expect.

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  • [–] 20 points 3 years ago (1 child)

    Many years ago I was run over by a car, the charge of the ambulance was $800 USD, the total hospital bill for the 4 hours I was in "observation" was $28,000. I did not have medical insurance at that time.

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  • [–] 5 points 3 years ago (2 children)

    How is that possible. A single accident and you're in debt for life ?

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  • [–] 6 points 3 years ago (1 child)

    Because the health insurance/medical industry situation in America is objectively criminal.
    This is why the quality of health insurance offered by a potential employer is such a huge consideration when looking for work in this country, sometimes outweighing prospects of salary or hourly pay. With even moderately decent coverage a bad accident can ruin your life financially.

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  • [–] 5 points 3 years ago* (1 child)

    Man people always complain about this but it's super easy to get out of these without paying nearly as much.

    1. Call and ask for an itemized bill.

    2. Get bill 3 months later and see the price hasn't changed

    3. Call and ask about a payment plan

    3b. Make less than $10k a year so you qualify

    1. Go back in time and get health insurance

    4b. Go back and get health insurance that doesn't have a $12k deductible

    4c. Go back and get health insurance that has a low deductible and actually covers at least half of your treatment

    1. Maybe just don't get run over by cars. Or get sick. Or inherit genetic diseases. And for the love of God don't get hurt on the job.

    It's really that easy.

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  • [–] 12 points 3 years ago* (3 children)

    Depends on aspect. Its actually not cheap to run an ambulence with the required personel and materials swapped often on call. I believe the main reason why its expemsive is because more often then not, the ambulence isnt paid for so said company takes a loss.

    ambulence costs are also tied down by law in some cities, so for those specific cities, its the city making the cost, not the company.

    For Europe, the bulk of the cost is covered by theor health care, so their out of pocket cost is low. In the U.S, its broken because insurance often denies the ride depending on insurance company and documentation.

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  • [+] 17 points 3 years ago (1 child)
    [deleted]
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  • [–] 9 points 3 years ago* (2 children)

    If we assume an ambulance+equipment costs $500k and has to be replaced every 5 years, requires 4 personnel around the clock to operate with the cost of employing one being $50/h, one ambulance getting an average of 4 calls per day and per call average costs of gas, medicine and other disposable stuff being $300 we are looking at about per ride cost of $1500 so if one ambulance ride costs 12k as per the other comment, we are looking at a profit margin of 87.5% even with these very likely way too high cost estimations.

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  • [–] 7 points 3 years ago (1 child)

    I like how you went into a detailed analysis of the cost and then whiffed on a decimal at the end. I'm pretty sure it should be 875%, which really shows how egregious this is. Thanks for your effort making this estimate, it's appreciated.

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  • [–] 4 points 3 years ago* (1 child)

    from my understanding profit margin is calculated by (sales-costs)/revenue making it impossible for it to be more than 100%

    the markup/profit percentage would be calculated as (selling price/costs)-1 so that would be 700%

    this is at least how i understood the wikipedia pages

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  • [–] 3 points 3 years ago (1 child)

    Where are you getting $50/hr? EMTs in the US make taco bell wages. They literally save lives, you can't be more valuable than that, and yet our wonderful corporations love to exploit the shit out of people who care...

    The general state of things is so goddamn disgusting.

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  • [–] 2 points 3 years ago

    i made all the numbers up, and chose numbers wildly over what they likely actually are as im not from us so dont know the wages of emts nor the actual cost of hiring someone(in my country the cost of employing a person is about 1.3-1.6 i dont remember exactly times their actual wage) and just to show how much more they could be paid and still have ridiculous profits

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  • [–] 4 points 3 years ago

    I think that even in parts of Europe why you do pay for health care, you don't pay for the ambulance. The reason being is that if the ambulance has already turned up, and the EMTs have already assessed you, it doesn't cost them any more money to transport you to the hospital so there isn't really any legitimate reason to charge you.

    What ambulances really are is just flat operating costs. But those are costs that can be predicted ahead of time so they tend to be paid for either by the hospital through some grant, or from the city. Or through taxes, like with the rest of healthcare, in places with free healthcare.

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