front desk logged it. But he didn’t go to her room first. He didn’t ask the nurses how she was doing or whether she was stable.
He walked straight to the billing department and asked one question: “How much is this going to cost?”
Pat Walsh, St. Catherine’s charge nurse and someone Wendy had worked alongside for years, was at the nurses’ station when Gerald Thomas came back from billing and found the surgeon managing Wendy’s case, Dr. Richard Hail. She heard every word.
The second surgery, Dr. Hail explained, would cost between one hundred eighty and two hundred forty thousand dollars depending on complications. Insurance would cover a portion, but significant out-of-pocket expenses remained.
Gerald Thomas didn’t blink.
“She doesn’t have a healthcare proxy,” he said. “I’m her father. I’m the decision maker here.”
That was technically true — protocol when no proxy is on file.
And then he said
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