California Woman Sues Hospital After Allegedly Being Charged $6,000 For Drug Test

An East Bay woman filed a lawsuit against a hospital after it allegedly charged her $6,000 for a drug test.

A woman whose name hasn’t been released is suing John Muir Health in Contra Costa County after reportedly being billed $6,000 for a drug test she received in the hospital’s emergency room in June.

“She did voluntarily ingest a drug that night that she thought was a bump of cocaine,” said the woman’s lawyer, Peter Fredman, per NBC Bay Area. Fredman says the woman went to the hospital fearing she’d taken cocaine laced with fentanyl.

“She was there for about three hours,” Fredman said, NBC Bay Area reports. “They took her urine and a blood test. After three hours, they sent her home.”

While her health insurance covered the $6,000 ER trip, she said she got another bill for an extra $7,000 for other fees. The breakdown of the charges showed she was billed $6,000 for a urine test. If covered by Medicare, the urine test would have been $62, the woman and her attorney said.

“They charged her $6,000-plus for that,” Fredman said. “And that’s what this case is about. We contend that that $6,000 charge for a urine test is unconscionable.”

John Muir Health denies the claims that she was overcharged. However, the woman isn’t the first person to accuse the hospital of overpricing health care, Fredman claims.