Hospital Options

I is just so funny to see a virtual monopoly advertising. It is hard to understand why they would waste the money on trying to sell locals on the great job they do unless more people are going to Ventura County for care... OR , now that they lost the bid to buy Sansum, maybe they are trying to take away the radiology and testing services that Sansum prices so much lower than Cottage for the same thing. I hope someone out there with some insight can share some facts behind what they are up to.

seems deserted these days. No complaints here.

They're most likely trying to "sell" the belief that "healthcare" can be obtained at hospitals &/or doctor's offices to those of us who don't guzzle Kool-Aid. No offense, but no one REALLY cares about your health more than you do - most doctors, nurses, and other "healthcare" workers make a living "treating symptoms" and doing "wellness checks". They do a pretty good job of repairing accident victims, but when it comes to catastrophic illnesses like cancer, they're more or less a wealth-extraction service.

As usual from that account, none of the claims in the first post are true.

Cottage Hospital is my Drug of choice as the Official Mayor of Milpas street and 5150 Mascot of the Universe their psychiatric ward is the beast almost as good as the one on Mars but not on Uranus.....They have the beast Fruit Punch freshly squeezed, and homemade Vanilla pudding than any otter psychiatric ward on thy blessed planet....Actually I have no other choice but it's good enough for me...A lot of people come here from other places to stay at Cottage it's a good hospital and yes I did stay in the psychiatric ward once for 5 days it was fun.

My family's two recent experiences at Cottage Hospital (ER and minor surgery with half-day hospitalization) have been excellent. The doctors in the ER are first-class, the service is humane and efficient; the nurses in the main part of the hospital are competent and considerate. We are lucky enough to be well insured, so we have no complaints about the prices.

It is so funny to hear anyone say how happy they are with the ER at Cottage. Every time I have been there either with my 80 year old father, or with my son for various injuries, the experience is close to miserable. I always find it dramatically understaffed, AND BTW- the ER doctors are not staff members with Cottage, they are all staffed out by an outside firm. Wait times are in the order of hours before you are seen, the pricing for that short visit is outlandish. One time I wrote a letter to the mothership after a lousy visit there, complaining about the hours sitting in the hallway waiting to be seen and the high pricing for the actual 15 minutes of being seen by someone.. Luckily, they agreed and discounted our bill. I just hope that Sansum tries to compete and opens up their Urgent Care on Pasetas to a 24/7 facility. they would make a tidy profit for themselves, provide a much better service and at a lower price.

I experienced fine care at Cottage ER and Hospital after going into shock following eating bad oysters. It doesn't matter whether the ER physicians are in a contracted group or are directly employed by the hospital. And all ER bills are outrageous unless you have insurance. The greatest value of insurance is how much lower the contracted rate is, not what they pay. The contracted rate for a $10,000 ER bill might be $1000 so even if you are in the deductible you will only be obligated for $1000. We are fortunate to have such a fine hospital serving our community.