Emergency Room Fees at Fannin Regional Hospital

Maybe there was a mistake with this high hospital bill or perhaps it is the going rate for Fannin Regional Hospital's ER Services. If it is a mistake, they are very eager to collect the money from us; we have been sent letters and received phone calls for the collection of a bill that in my opinion is outrageous for the services received. There is story behind this bill, actually two different bills, one from the Fannin Regional Hospital, the other from Fannin Emergency Group LLC. Fannin Emergency Group is the provider of the ER physician who attended my wife on her visit to Fannin Regional's Emergency Room; his name is Herbert Flynn MD,
My wife went to the ER to get checked out for some pain she was feeling after she had been involved in an automobile accident. The accident was not her fault so the responsibility of paying for her visit to the ER falls to the other driver's Insurance provider, which happens to be Georgia Farm Bureau. My wife told them about the accident and felt she should be checked out in case she had some injuries as a result of the accident. The doctor checked her out by just examining her himself, no x-rays, no lab work, nothing but a routine hands-on, non-invasive examination. He told her she had probably strained something as she braced for the impact of the wreck and wrote her a prescription for some 400mg Ibuprofen and released her. To the best of my knowledge this is all the treatment that she received at Fannin's Emergency room. Now for the cost of this little emergency room visit: the total charge for this visit was
$982.54.
This seems a little high for a routine visit to the hospital. The bill breaks down as follows; $540.54 to Fannin Regional
$442.00 to the Physician Services


The physician services include $417 to the physician and $25 for using the Fannin Regional ER between the hours of 10PM -8AM. $173.60 of the physicians' bill was erroneously paid by my major medical provider, UnitedHealth Care. The bill should have been charged to the Auto Insurance provider, I hope United got their money back.
$982 seems like a very large sum of money for a routine emergency room visit. Unless you have a life threatening situation you may want to stay away from this ER. Even if your insurance will cover the cost, consider other options. As long as people and insurance companies are willing to pay these outrageous hospital fees, the cost of healthcare will continue to rise.
This bill may be a mistake, if it is I will take down this post and post a rebuttal. If it is a mistake the bill collector seems to be alright with asking me for the full amount.