The pain in my left knee just wouldn't go away. I couldn't pinpoint the exact cause. Could have been some sort of fall, could have been pivoting my knee wrong, could have been some sort of sports injury. I wasn't exactly sure. I was sure that there was something wrong and it needed medical attention. I could walk around, but couldn't dream of running; I had a pretty noticeable limp, some swelling and plenty of pain that just wouldn't go away, even after weeks of rest.
I had insurance, but I had a pretty high deductible, so the first four thousand worth of medical expenses would be my responsibility. I didn't want to pay some doctor a few hundred bucks to tell me I need to ice it, keep it elevated and rested. Eventually, I got so sick of having to limp around that I decided it would be worth my peace of mind just to get it checked out.
The doctor looked at it and after playing around with it for a little bit said that he thought it was the meniscus. I didn't even know what that was, but I was relieved that it wasn't the ACL. He showed me what he thought it was, but said the only way to be sure is to get an MRI. I thought to myself: "ok, maybe there is something wrong, but if there isn't I am out a thousand bucks for this MRI!" I agreed to get the MRI because I didn't want to risk doing further damage to my knee.
The MRI was the most expensive 45 minutes of my life. It was a very simple and painless procedure. They gave me the slides right after I was done, which I foolishly tried to decipher myself. After a half hour of trying to figure out what I was even looking at, I gave up and decided to wait until going to the doctor again to get them professionally read.
The doctor took one look at them and confirmed that it was a torn meniscus. He said that the only way to fix it would be arthroscopic surgery. He assured me that it would never be able to heal on its own, and I would just end up with accelerated arthritis in my knee as I grew older. I scheduled my surgery and kissed the last of my deductible goodbye.
The surgery went perfectly. I was nervous going in, but the nurse helped ease my nerves. They knocked me out and the next thing I knew, the surgery was over. My knee was really swollen for the next couple days, but started to recover rapidly. I soon began physical therapy which helped make a full recovery.
After the whole process, I checked my insurance online to see all the claims. I was shocked to see how expensive everything was. Four thousand for the surgeon, eighteen thousand for the surgery center, nearly a thousand worth of doctor visits and physical therapy appointments, another thousand for drugs and the anesthesiologist. All in all, I realized that only paying four thousand for all those services was a pretty good deal on my end.
I had purchased the insurance (I am self employed) thinking that it would only really come in handy in the event of some sort of horrible accident, cancer, or other very unfortunate event. I didn't realize that it would come in so helpful for something as simple as knee surgery. The moral of the story is that health insurance is something that everyone needs, because even if you can't afford to have it, you can never afford not to have it.
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