Woman Claims Hospital Charged $40 for Crying at Appointment in Viral Tweet

A tweet in which a woman claims her sister was charged $40 for crying during an appointment by a hospital has gone viral—though the case was probably more complex than that.

The tweet, by Twitter user @OffbeatLook, had gained more than 250,000 likes by Wednesday morning after being posted just one day prior.

In it, she wrote: "My little sister has been really struggling with a health condition lately and finally got to see a doctor. They charged her $40 for crying."

The tweet included a photograph of what appeared to be her sister's medical bill, which included a $40 charge for "brief emotional/behav. assmt."

The Twitter user claimed that the hospital "charged her $40 without addressing why she is crying, trying to help, doing any evaluation, any prescription, nothing."

The tweet received more than 2,000 comments with many users expressing concern over the high costs of U.S. healthcare.

Newsweek could not independently verify the claims made in the tweet and has contacted the user for comment.

However, hospitals can charge for behavioral assessments, which is likely what is referred to by the "behav. assmt" section of the bill mentioned in the tweet. Such assessments are billed under a medical code known as CPT Code 96127.

Newsweek has examined a similar bill before after another viral tweet was posted in September last year. In it, someone posted a medical bill for a mole removal that included $11 for "brief emotion."

CPT Code 96127 is a code that can be used to report emotional or behavioral screenings carried out by doctors for a variety of reasons. It can be used in OB/GYN offices to assess depression or anxiety, for example, or could be used in pediatric settings to screen for eating disorders, according to mental health screening tool company Mentegram.

In a statement provided to Newsweek last year regarding CPT Code 96127, the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP) said the assessment "may be used to help screen for conditions such as depression, anxiety, attention-deficit disorders, and generalized psychosocial symptoms" at the discretion of physicians.

"There are no requirements to screen patients if they display emotion, and code 96127 cannot be reported simply because a patient shows emotion, such as crying," it said. "Any emotional/behavioral assessment based on an encounter is a clinical decision made by the physician in consultation with the patient."

A Google search brings up advice for physicians regarding the code. Mentegram has a web page that includes tips on "how to increase revenue" by billing patients with it, and states that "data and scoring must be provided for the screenings that are conducted."

This appears to go against the claim of the Twitter user who said her sister was not evaluated despite being charged for such an assessment.

It's not the only viral tweet on medical debt recently. On May 15, a Twitter user described their response to a dentist who gave them a "stern talk" since they had not gone to get their teeth checked in 30 years.

"I told her I couldn't afford it and had no insurance," the tweet read. "'Well what did you do when you were sick?', she asked. She looked at me blankly when I said 'I waited it out unless I thought I was going to die.'"

Last month, U.S. president Joe Biden proposed measures to address medical debt in the country as Americans battle some of the world's highest healthcare costs. The proposals included helping some low-income veterans get their debt cancelled and reducing the role that medical debt plays in allowing people to access credit.