Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore
A 20-year-old man arrives at the emergency department with right lower quadrant pain and fever: It’s appendicitis. As the on-call surgery resident, you notify your attending surgeon, who asks you to book the case. As you’re obtaining informed consent, the patient asks, “How much will this cost?”
You don’t know, but you respond with what you think is a medicolegally safe answer. “Cost is something you’ll have