Pursuing A Better Medical Path

I’ve been seeking medical help for the past two months. This week, things suddenly took a big turn. I finally saw the surgeon early last week; he agreed to fix me up. But the local hospital would not cooperate with me financially. Then I discovered a simpler path that looks promising — a bottle of liquor, a serrated knife, and…uh, yeah, totally kidding on that last part. Self-pay problem I was having difficulty with my local hospital’s financial department. It was willing to let me use the self-pay option, which is what I typically do. But there were two problems with that: 1) It gave me a large flat up-front fee based on the national average for the type of surgery I need, but it was on the very high-end, far above the actual average. This was pointed out to the hospital but it argued otherwise. This relates to the next problem, 2) The hospital was either unwilling or unable to give me a quote, itemized bill, or even an estimate to see what I would actually be paying for. How much…