You mean you don't have a co-pay set up for the emergency room too? We do. We pay $50. and that's it.

"Urgent Care" places are $30.

We don't; ER coverage is something like 80 percent of covered charges less deductible.

I have the $50 ER visit thing. Except, the trick is that the ER staff (I suppose just the doctors) are actually employees of a different entity. Who - of course - are "out of network." I just got off the phone about this. The answer to the "is there any way of knowing if the ER doctor is in-network" ...?

Nope. Not until you get the bill.

I had my own ER experience recently and know exactly what you're talking about. Service? It was awful. Everything they did they acted like they were doing me some huge favor as opposed to being paid (well) by a customer...er....patient. The ER doctor at Mercy worked for some outfit called, "Phoenix Physicians"....He walked in, after an hour and a half wait (in the room), and didn't even introduce himself! Just another experience that reminds me why I'll do almost anything to keep from getting into the "system" and becoming a cog in a broken health care machine.

A year ago I had the same experience. Since I came away with a clean bill of health, my insurance carrier wanted to disallow the claim for using an emergency room. That was until they found out that I contacted my doctor first and he advised me to go to emergency. Phew!

Like you, now that I've been checked out, any future pains in the heart area will have to be extremely severe for me to go for emergency care.