Mom Handed $100k Hospital Bill For Taking Baby to ER Sparks Fury
Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content.
A California mother said she received more than $100,000 in transport bills after her 6-month-old son, who had severe burns, required emergency services treatment, according to local news outlet ABC 7.
The charges included a nearly $90,000 air-ambulance flight, lasting around 15 minutes, and a roughly $10,200 ambulance ride of approximately 0.3 miles between the helipad and the hospital entrance.
The bills have since been waived, almost three years later, after ABC 7 On Your Side reached out to the relevant parties after the mother got in touch.
Why It Matters
The family's experience highlights the broader issue of high medical costs in the country—and how insurance companies do not always shield patients from very large transport and hospital charges, prompting further outrage at insurance companies more widely.
California ranked top three for having the highest costs for on ground ambulance bills in 2022, according to the nonprofit health organization FAIR health, behind Utah and Wyoming.
Meanwhile, the state, along with Minnesota, Illinois, and New Jersey, had employer-sponsored insurance prices for on ground ambulance bills that were more than three times the Medicare reimbursement rate, according to the Health Care Cost Institute.
Since the incident, state-level protections have evolved as California has enacted AB 716 to limit surprise billing for ground ambulance services and to require insured patients to be charged in-network rates in many emergency scenarios.
File photo: A Sacramento Fire Department Ambulance races to the scene of an emergency.
File photo: A Sacramento Fire Department Ambulance races to the scene of an emergency.
MattGush/Getty Images
What To Know
Antioch resident Jessica Farwell said her 6-month-old son, Brody, suffered second-degree burns in October 2022 after a rice cooker fell from a counter.
She said Sutter Antioch Emergency Room staff treated Brody with fentanyl for the pain, and told her the hospital lacked a burn unit, but that no ground ambulances were available for multiple hours.
Farwell said that doctors told her she had to transfer Brody to Shriners Children's Hospital in Sacramento, and an air transfer was arranged.
She had asked to drive, which would have been a one hour 20 minute journey, but the doctors allegedly refused, per the ABC News report.
Per the outlet, Farwell said she was told she would not get billed for the journey because it was being requested by the hospital.
Once at the hospital in Sacramento, Brody's second-degree burns were treated and he was discharged the next day.
It was a few months later when the bill for more than $100,000 in transport costs came through the mail, as well as additional waiting fees. Newsweek was unable to contact Farwell for comment or independently verify the bill.
"I couldn't believe my eyes!" Farwell told ABC 7. "You look at the bills, and it's absolutely enraging—we got hit for a $600 waiting fee... there's a fee for it being a nighttime service... there's just every single fee you can think of!"
Farwell told ABC News that her insurer covered less than half the helicopter charge and only a portion of the ambulance fee, leaving her to cover $57,929.80 for the flight and $7,327 for the ambulance.
She said she spent almost three years trying to contact the hospital, the ambulance company, and her insurance to get the issue sorted but always got the "runaround."
Farwell said that she started Googling for help when she started getting constant calls from collection companies, and ABC's 7 On Your Side came up, prompting her to get in touch.
The local news outlet then reached out to the parties involved and got the bills waived in a few days, nearly three years after the incident.
Social media users have taken to X to share their shock at Farwell's experience, with political commentator Colin Rugg, who has more than 1.8 million followers on the platform, writing the incident was "absolutely insane," while others deemed it "unbelievable."
What People Are Saying
Jessica Farwell, Antioch resident and mother of Brody, told ABC7: "They called and said it's done, we will never bill you again. They almost sounded apologetic. I hung up and told my husband. We just couldn't believe it! All it took was filling out a form on your guys' website. It's a miracle!
"It just blows my mind I've been working on this for three years... and did not chip away at it... And within a couple of days you had people within the insurance company and the hospital actually trying to help! I have laid my heart out to these people for three years but then you guys get involved and they're scrambling—they're absolutely scrambling."
Carmen Balber, executive director, Consumer Watchdog, told ABC7: "I understand ambulances are high-tech machinery. They are staffed by medical personnel who have specialized degrees. But at the end of the day, a 0.3-mile drive should never cost a patient $10,000!"
Pro Transport-1, the ambulance company, said in a statement to ABC7: "While we feel this issue still 100 percent lies with the insurance company simply deciding to pass part of the bill to the patient, we will accept their partial payment and no longer seek the remaining balance of the bill for our services."
John Simley, communications director for Blue Cross Blue Shield, told ABC7 in a statement: "We don't comment publicly on specific member issues. We are committed to increasing access to safe, appropriate, and effective health care based on the best available information and research, and in accordance with a member's benefit plan."
What Happens Next
The bills have now been waived after ABC 7 reached out to the relevant parties.
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