Allison Thayer's gall bladder, and its subsequent removal, has done more than simply cause her a lot of discomfort and pain — it cost her $12,000 and has ruined her credit.

This all comes as a result of Schrade's departure from Ellenville. Thayer's family lived in Wawarsing for years, and Allison attended the Wawarsing Christian Academy until sixth grade, when she and her family moved to Napanoch, then to Claryville. Her parents worked at Schrade, her father doing so for almost 30 years, until he was laid off in 2004 when they left town. The family was without insurance for two years — insurance which would've covered her treatment at Ellenville Regional Hospital and her surgery at Kingston Hospital in March, 2006 during her junior year of college at SUNY Oswego.

Allison acknowledges she couldn't diagnose herself, but had a good idea that her gall bladder would have to come out. "We knew what it was. It runs in my family," she says.

"They ran all of these tests and gave me all of this medicine, knowing that I didn't have insurance, but they said that's a good thing because then I'd be able to apply for Medicaid," she continues.

She was taken to Kingston Hospital in an ambulance, not aware that you could say 'no' to the expensive service. Worse still, the advice she'd received at Ellenville didn't exactly work out.

"I applied for Medicaid while I was in the hospital, and was denied," she says. "I also tried to apply less than three months later in hopes that they could help me out, even if it was a little bit. When I arrived at the local Social Service Office, I was first asked if I was twenty-one years old, and I said 'no.' Then, I was asked if I was pregnant, and I said 'no.' Lastly, I was asked if I lived at home, and I said, 'only while I'm not in college.' The woman looked at me and told me that I was 'wasting my time.'"

Meanwhile, Allison returned to college to finish her bachelor's degree. During that time, her parents received notices that the bills had gone to collection agencies, but didn't tell her about them, hoping to take care of them as best they could so she could concentrate on her studies. They sent $10 a month to each collector in efforts to keep the collectors at bay. Allison found out shortly after she graduated, however, and not in the best of circumstances — she applied for an in-store credit card and found that she was denied.

"I didn't understand why," she says, "because I only had one credit card with a $500 limit. So I looked up my credit reports, and I saw that all of these things are in collection, and I wasn't notified about anything."

Since that time, Allison's had a crash course in working with collection agencies and large organizations to try and accomplish goals — that goal being getting herself out of the red and back on track. She reports she's worked with the surgeon, gastroenterologist, and anesthesiologist from her procedures in Kingston to have bill's owed to each halved. But even with these bill-reductions, the stays at each hospital add up to nearly $7,000.

"If you look at the numbers between Ellenville Regional Hospital and Kingston Hospital, without the surgeons and doctors, the amount due from one night in Ellenville was $2896.00…and the amount due from Kingston Hospital for four nights was $3820.00. That hardly seems fair."

Steve Kelley, president and CEO of Ellenville Regional Hospital, said in an interview last week that he was unhappy hearing about Allison's situation. He was unable to discuss specific matters due to confidentiality laws, but said that when it comes to patients admitted to the ER, his staff treats everyone the same regardless of their insurance situation.

"We treat everyone in the ER whether they have the ability to pay or not, we treat everyone exactly the same," says Kelley. "If someone is eligible for Medicaid, or we think they might be, we encourage them to get Medicaid, because they ought to have insurance if they're eligible for it. We facilitate that, we help them to enroll." When asked if she could speak with him directly about working something out regarding payment, Kelley agreed.

"If we could help people out, we should do that."

Perhaps this situation will have a happy resolution. Allison currently works as a clerk at an Ellenville law office, and will return to Oswego this fall for her master's in mental health and human services, where she'll work as a Graduate Resident Mentor. Hopefully she'll work something out with ERH, and she'll get her life back on the right path.

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