[bivenator]

My wife and I are both self employed. Being self employed means buying your insurance on the open market. This is expensive, so much so that my wife dropped her coverage about 2 years ago.
Last Tuesday she began to have abdominal pain. She went to ER. The nurse practitioner that saw her in the ER was convinced that it was appendicitis. Blood work was ordered, urinalysis and a CT scan. I work in medical imaging so this is all very familiar to me.
Blood work was completely normal, as was the urinalysis, abdominal pain did not match classic appendicitis indication. No nausea or vomiting, diarhea or fever. This was not a classic appendicitis case. The nurse practitioner (NP) wanted to do a CT however I felt that an ultrasound would be appropriate and more cost effective.
The NP was adamant about using the CT as the only diagnostic tool and when we asked what would happen if we refused the CT he said that we could sign the AMA papers and could go home a die. Not much of a choice, so feeling bullied we agreed to do the CT.
The CT report noted that the appenix was normal in appearance with only a small amount of fluid surrounding. It could be early appendicitis or maybe not.
With this information in hand the NP decided that surgery was the next step, we (wife and I) did not get to see the report or CT images and soon had papers thrust into our hands in order to give consent for an emergency appendectomy.
We had not consulted the surgeon prior to signing consent. We asked to speak to the surgeon prior to signing. He arrived and seemed disinterested. My wife asked about the CT findings, the surgeon left the room to view the CT.
When the surgeon returned he was a bit more interested. He did an abdominal exam, asked her history and after a few minutes stated that he would not be doing the appendectomy and felt that the pain was being caused by a grapefruit sized ovarian cyst.
This grapefruit sized cyst was completely missed and not mentioned by the radiologist on the CT report. My wife was about 10 minutes away from an unneeded appendectomy that ultimately would not have solved her problem.
We were sent home with pain meds and told to see a gyno. We have since been to the gyno and it was determined that surgery to remove the cyst is needed.
To summerize,
The NP misdiagnosed and the radiologist mis-interpreted. Surgery was not performed but expensive tests that were not asked for and ultimately not need were performed.
What is fair? Ask for the non needed exams to be forgiven?
Entire bill be forgiven?
Sue for damges?

If you made it this far thru this long post, thanks for hanging in there.