Mark Ricci’s daughter injured herself last month, so he took her to Emergency Hospital Systems- The Woodlands in the 26200 block of the North Freeway.
The clinic also operates as Cleveland Emergency Hospital.
“My wife and I realized this wasn’t the kind of wound you could just put a bandage on,” Ricci said. His daughter suffered a laceration to her chin.
Ricci said they were ultimately unable to treat her injury, but that didn’t stop them from sending his insurance a bill for $118,620.
The documents he showed reporters said $80,234.70 came from the clinic, and the remaining $38,385.48 was from the doctor who saw his daughter.
“It was pure shock,” he said. “It didn’t make any sense – it was just a minor skin laceration.”
A representative from the clinic said the total is their “standard markup rate” but added that insurance never actually has to pay that much.
The clinic said it has settled with Ricci’s insurance company for $516, though, as of now, he said his account doesn’t reflect that.
He added that he had to take his daughter to a second emergency room to get her chin adequately treated, and following that, his insurance company was billed about $5200 for that visit.
Reporters asked Emergency Hospital Systems – The Woodlands about the medical element of Ricci’s concerns, but they said they couldn’t get that information to us until Monday.