Michael Flor was one of the country's first COVID-19 patients. During his battle with Corona Virus, he lost 40 pounds, and couldn't walk or feed himself. He stayed in the hospital for 62 days plus two weeks in a rehab. Good news, he beat the virus, and went home to find a crazy souvenir: a 181-page medical bill for $1.1 million.
The thousands of charges listed on Flor's statement included care for pneumonia, heart and kidney failure, and he had to be put on a ventilator twice. At one point, doctors told his family he wasn't going to make it, nurses even held up the phone to his ear so his family could say goodbye. Flor was lucky. The 70-year-old made a full recovery and says he only had to cover about $3,000 of that huge medical bill, thanks to Medicare, supplemental insurance, and congressional program that was designed to help hospitals defray pandemic costs.
According to a report, the average charge for a COVID-19 hospitalization is about $73,000 for someone without insurance.