I've had way too much experience after an unfortunate outcome to a surgery on March 10, 2016. I've had 5 subsequent surgeries, and I'm hoping the last one 3 1/2 weeks ago will restore some quality of life for me.

Don't react too adversely to the first statements you see, especially if you're on medicare as I am. I have a BC/BS medigap policy, and have found it to be useless. The reason is, there's a short statement in their policies that effectively says they will apply to my deductible any "medicare covered services" beyond what Medicare pays., For one of my surgeries, there were 43 line items from the surgery for supplies, etc that medicare did not carry. The initial hospital billing for those 43 items was over $18,000, so I thought I was going to take a real hit. (Beyond being really messed up by the surgery.) When it was all sorted out, my out of pocket was only around $1500 as I recall.
[Post edited by NJHoo at 12/10/2017 9:46PM]