Georgia man hit with $17K cruise ship bill after visit to onboard doctor

A Georgia man thought a visit to a cruise ship doctor would cost him about $150. Instead, he says he stepped off the ship with more than $17,000 charged to his credit card.

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“Since this has happened, I wake up every morning with the weight of the $17,500 on my shoulders,” Jeff Ricardo told Channel 2 Action News.

Ricardo and his family were on a Thanksgiving cruise to the Bahamas when, during an excursion, he noticed a familiar feeling: fluid in his lungs.

He went to the onboard physician on Thanksgiving Day hoping to get a prescription for medication he had taken in the past.

“They told me to come back between six and seven thirty, and it would be half the price to see the doctor,” Ricardo said.

Ricardo says he was told the visit would cost him about $150.

“They never explained to me these prices,” Ricardo said.

More than $17,000 was charged to the credit card Ricardo had on file with the cruise line before he stepped foot back on dry land.

“You can’t leave until you pay the $17,500,” he said.

Medical care at sea can work very differently from care at home. A passenger’s regular health insurance may not cover treatment aboard a cruise ship, and whether travel insurance covers a bill can depend on the policy and circumstances.

Channel 2 Consumer Advisor Clark Howard, an avid cruiser, said he knows about the issue firsthand after once facing it himself.

“You go to a cruise line infirmary at your own wallet’s risk,” Howard said.

Howard said passengers should pay close attention not just to the cost of seeing the doctor, but also to any testing or treatment being ordered.

“Those are separate departments on a cruise ship. They’re their own profit centers. And you need to control what testing is done on you,” Howard said.

For nearly a year, Ricardo said he tried to fight the bill with Norwegian Cruise Line. He even flew to Miami to visit the company’s offices.

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“They’ve been denying me and denying me and denying me,” Ricardo said.

“It takes it out of you. I mean, it drains you from doing the things that you have to do every day,” he said.

But when Ricardo told Norwegian that he was sitting down with Channel 2 Action News the cruise line offered to pay him back more than $15,000.

Norwegian said in an email, the money was being refunded as a “goodwill accommodation despite absence of billing errors.”

Ricardo ultimately recovered about $15,000 of the more than $17,000 he was charged.

But he says the consequences of the bill have not disappeared.

Ricardo said the charge pushed his credit card balance far beyond his credit limit and caused his credit score to fall by nearly 200 points.

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