the Cost of Emergency Medical Procedures

My two sons had engaged in a "head butting" game, with my youngest being on the losing end. Seeing blood coming from the eye area was horrible and we immediately spend to the closest emergency room.

In the ER, the doctor on duty, a family practitioner, just glanced at the injury and determined that she needed to call someone else. After waiting another hour, an opthalmologist came in and decided we needed to have stitches along the crease of his eyelid, where the injury was. Since my son had eaten in the not so distant past, however, it would have to wait until morning because they wanted to put him under general anesthesia.

After all of the waiting, wondering and other anxiety, my son was put under general anesthesia for 2 stitches. While I didn't want him to encounter lasting problems from the whole incident, I don't believe $3000 was necessary for 2 stitches, especially since afterwards one of the nurses from surgery told us that a butterfly bandage would've done the same thing.

What began at around 7pm one night ended around 2pm the next day, after my son had the 2 stitches and was woken up from the anesthetic.

If you live in a small town and have an emergency, you're stuck with whatever they advise. Even if you disagree with them, you don't have many options unless you want to travel to the next town over, which isn't necessarily a possibility with an emergency.

Learn from your mistakes. If you don't agree with how something was handled, resolve that in the future you will do things differently so that it will be better handled if there is next time.