American Woman Fined for Crying During Surgery: What's Going On?
An American woman claims she was charged extra during a mole removal surgery because she couldn't stop crying. But what really happened?
Midgie from Virginia, USA, took to social media with a post claiming she received an $11 charge for "crying during surgery." After undergoing a mole removal procedure, Midgie was billed $223 for the medical procedure, plus an additional $11 for what was described in the invoice as "brief emotion."
She shared the invoice image online, and her post went viral, gaining over 16,000 shares. "This perfectly illustrates the ugly face of the American healthcare system," commented one user. Another user wrote, "I should have hidden my tears better. I'm going to owe them a lot after my hospital stay."
The invoice shared online
However, it seems the charge is not actually for expressing emotion, but for its assessment. Users explained that this is a medical billing code used for "brief emotional/behavioral assessment" (likely abbreviated to "brief emotion"), and the charge is for a mental health evaluation questionnaire conducted as part of a standard clinical examination.
One user shared a similar experience in the comments: "This really happens... I had to pay for it when they ran my first blood test, just because they decided to run it through some depression check I didn't approve."
Midgie mentioned she indeed completed a depression screening questionnaire during a routine annual physical exam, not realizing her insurance wouldn't cover it: "It was basically 10 (or fewer) questions about mental health," she noted.
While a British newspaper reporting on the case noted that $11 is not a significant amount of money, it is precisely what makes this charge so insidious. "The American healthcare system is riddled with such charges, small medical procedures that accumulate to enormous sums and unnecessary medical interventions amounting to millions of dollars," they wrote.
