No In-Network Hernia Repair Surgeons? What do I do?

Hi all,

I am a low income college student studying out of state covering all of my own expenses and everything. I have had a healthcare.gov plan and my first instance of using it has suddenly come up. 21, zip is 38111, income is $14k-18k per year (I have about net 2k per year based off my expenses since this goes towards all expenses).

I actually had not set up my first primary care appointment, so when I got a kinda painful large bump in my groin I went to urgent care and then referred over to an ultrasound. I got an inguinal hernia. The urgent care place said they were going to refer me to a surgeon to talk about it / what to do surgery wise in the next week. My idea though is it absolutely will need to be taken care of, as it can become an emergency at any random point.

Thinking ahead, I looked up the list of in-network operations and stuff. This junt ain’t covered in network at all!! I have built my whole plan of paying my monthly deductible so I can have a $2200 out of pocket max in a year. I genuinely cannot afford more than that and it would screw me over so, so hard to walk away with a bill larger than that from any medical procedure.

Why the heck is a hernia – a super common surgery, not covered at all???

I set up my first primary care appointment for a week and a half from now. My loose game plan is to get the ultrasound and urgent care/surgeon’s documents over to my pcp, but I have NO idea what the steps for getting this hernia thing taken care of in any way would be. I mean, it’s literally I find a way for my insurance to cover an out of network insurance or I wait until it’s a fucking emergency and still get it covered.

My only scares are that I am going to Maine for a summer job for 7 weeks this summer and will be on a flight if an emergency happens, and then in September I will be doing a charity internship in a remote part of East Turkey for 2 full weeks. This is a almost fully-painless medium hernia, but these are the two times I can predict where getting to an ER would not be easy / could cost me my life. Giving up the Turkey internship is the last thing I want to do period, and I just cannot fathom this hernia is worth working around. I really hope god doesn’t smite me on this more than he already has because this has really thrown off my entire vibe this week.

submitted by /u/Pineapple_Empty
[comments]