Woman Claims Her Sister Was Charged $40 For Crying During Doctor's Appointment

A New York woman has claimed that her sister’s hospital bill included charges for crying during a doctor’s appointment.

The woman shared a picture of the hospital bill that garnered 477,600 likes on Twitter and was retweeted nearly 61,000 times. Camille Johnson, 25, said her younger sister has recently been struggling with a health condition, News18 reported.

“She has a rare disease so she’s been really struggling to find care. She got emotional because she feels frustrated and helpless,” the woman explained.

Johnson, who has 400,000 subscribers on YouTube, said her family was shocked when the hospital charged her sister $40 for “BRIEF EMOTIONAL/BEHAV ASSMT.”

“One tear in and they charged her $40 without addressing why she is crying, trying to help, doing any evaluation, any prescription, nothing,” Johnson wrote on Twitter.

“They charged her more for crying than they did for a vision assessment test. They charged her more for crying than for a hemoglobin test,” she wrote. “They charged her more for crying than for a health risk assessment. They charged her more for crying than for a capilary blood draw.”

A brief emotional/behavioral assessment is administered to identify signs of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), depression, anxiety, suicidal risk or substance abuse, according to the New York Post. Individuals are given a questionnaire to fill out so that doctors can identify the signs.

Doctors have been charging individuals for such tests since 2015. However, Johnson claimed the doctor did not say anything when her sister cried and did not evaluate her for depression or other mental illnesses.

The YouTuber said the doctor neither discussed her sister’s mental health with her nor took any action to help her with her mental health.

Johnson said she shared her sister’s story to spark conversations, and her tweet received many comments about medical care in the U.S.

One woman shared her own experience of being charged nearly $2,000 for “Women’s services” while getting a tumor-related surgery. The woman claimed that doctors explained to her that the charges were for a pregnancy test.

Others also shared instances from their own personal experiences on Johnson’s thread.