Cultural Lessons from the Hospital

Just to clarify, I was helping out a friend who was in the ER. She is doing better now after staying overnight in the hospital and getting her appendix out the next morning.

In the hospital here:
1. You pay cash for any procedure before they will perform the procedure.
Thankfully, my friend knew this and stopped at an ATM and pulled out $2000 on the way to the ER.

2.You can bargain the hospital cashier how much you are willing to pay him!
At first, he told me that a surgery usually costs about $7,000. He was not looking at a computer or a paper, he just looked at the ceiling and then at me and said $7,000. I was shocked and made it apparent that I was not going to pay $7,000. He said that they just needed a deposit, because my friend was being admitted and the decision for surgery would be made the next morning. So he asked for $3,000. I knew I only had $2,000. (I was prepared to use my own money and ATM card if needed) I had already paid $300 for her catscan, so I only had $1,700 to offer him. Thankfully, he took my offer.
Like everyother place here, the cashier had to scan every $50 bill that I gave him. Through this process of scanning 30 $50 bills, we jokingly asked he had found bad bills before, and he said he had found 1 or 2. Well, you probably saw this coming, but the second to last bill I gave him was rejected. He tried many times but it would not go through! Thankfully, I had more bills to exchange for it.

3. After the ER staff were ready to admit her, I had to first pay the cashier, and the cashier is the one who looked for vacancies. Yes, he told me to wait, while he looked in the computer for vacancies! And then he asked which class I wanted. After checking with my friend, we got 1st class. So her room has a couch, a rocking chair, another chair, and a flat-screen tv.

4. My friend has a 3 month old baby. The hospital staff did not want the baby in the ER room. But we could not take the baby away, because she was still feeding her, so had to keep the baby in the ER room. Are there really less germs in the waiting room that the ER rooms?

Just wanted to share with you the cultural lessons I picked up on from the hospital here. I was very surprised to learn this, especially the first 3.