Jon Gosselin Left With Insanely Expensive Hospital Bill After Near-Fatal Health Scare

Jon Gosselin is opening up about a terrifying medical emergency that nearly derailed his wedding, and, according to him, could have cost him his life. The former "Jon & Kate Plus 8" star, now 48, revealed that just weeks before marrying Stephanie Lebo, he was rushed to the hospital after experiencing symptoms that quickly escalated from painful to life-threatening. Gosselin said the ordeal began with what he described as a “grueling pain” in his leg while he was preparing for the wedding. By the next day, Jon Gosselin says the pain had spread to his upper shoulder, and things took a frightening turn later that night.

“I was like, ‘Something is wrong,’” Gosselin told Daily Mail, explaining that he woke up coughing violently. “I coughed up what looked like silly putty. It was a blood clot.”

Despite the severity of the situation, Gosselin said he made the risky decision to drive himself to the hospital in the middle of the night, something he later learned could have been fatal. “If you have deep-vein thrombosis, you could die at the wheel,” he said.

After undergoing imaging at the hospital, Gosselin was diagnosed with two bilateral pulmonary embolisms, a condition in which blood clots travel to the lungs. He was then sent for additional testing, including an ultrasound. The scare rattled his family, especially those closest to him.

“Stephanie was scared to death,” Gosselin said, adding that his daughter Hannah and son Collin both “freaked out” when they learned what was happening. Fortunately, doctors were able to treat the condition with medication, but Gosselin didn’t downplay how close the situation came to ending differently.

“I’m on heart meds, blood pressure meds, aspirin, and then I take Eliquis. It’s a drug that prevents blood clots,” he explained. “But I definitely could have died. If I had just stayed home that night, I could have had a real pulmonary embolism and just died.”

While Gosselin recovered physically, he said the financial fallout was another shock. The former reality star-turned-DJ was left with a hospital bill totaling roughly $20,000, which he believes included unnecessary testing. “It was a nonprofit hospital, so they get paid anyway, and they billed me for the whole procedure,” he said.

Gosselin specifically questioned why he underwent both an MRI and an ultrasound. “But there were weird things that happened. Like I got an MRI, right? They scanned my whole body for blood clots. But then they sent me for an ultrasound,” he said. “Well, you already scanned my whole body, so you know where it is and you told me where it is… You’re double-billing me!”

Confused by the charges, Gosselin sought help from healthcare strategist Rachel Strauss, who helped him review the itemized bill line by line. “She literally went through my itemized bill,” he said. “If you get the itemized bill and you have the dropdown codes for every procedure that's done, they have all the healthcare coding under each big procedure. It's all broken down.”

He added that much of what appeared on the bill was never clearly explained to him during his hospital stay. “You shouldn't need a graduate degree to be able to read your health insurance and payments these days, which is why everyone's in trouble," Jon Gosselin said.

The experience left a lasting impression on Gosselin, who later teamed up with Strauss again at the Sundance Film Festival, where he DJ’d a party celebrating a screening of her documentary "Side Effects May Include."

“She helped me personally and opened my eyes to just how broken our healthcare system can be,” Gosselin said. “She is truly someone making a real difference and if you get an opportunity to see her film ‘Side Effects May Include’ it will open your eyes as well.”

Several weeks after the health scare, Gosselin married Lebo at The Barn at Silverstone in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, in front of about 180 guests. Only two of his eight children, Hannah and Collin, attended the ceremony, with Collin serving as a groomsman.

His other six children, Madelyn, Cara, Aaden, Leah, Alexis, and Joel, were absent amid ongoing family estrangement.