$83,046 For A 3 Hour Hospital Visit - Why Are Hospital Bills So Outrageous?

TEC ^ | 09/08/2012 | Michael Snyder

[Mr. Jeeves]

Cost shifting: free care for the indigent, cheap drugs and medical devices for other countries, and high profit margins for US medical companies mean we “deep pockets” consumers get to carry the whole load. It can be fixed, but that will lead to a lot of squawking by traditional supporters of the Republican Party - our team doesn’t likely have the balls to get it done.

[LaserJock]

Can a defense attorney, judge, or jury foreman be sued because a criminal they got acquitted in a trial commits another crime?

There must be some way to protect our doctors from the personal injury attorneys the same way we protect our judges, defense attorneys, and juries when they fail in their duty to put away dangerous criminals.

I'd start by eliminating all pain and suffering from medical suits. Unfortunately pain and suffering are part of the business. Furthermore, doctors are imperfect and shouldn't be expected to be. Infrequent and understandable human errors (i.e. misdiagnoses) should be tolerated by the system. However, if a doctor was truly incompetent or negligent, then he goes to jail or loses his license - but no transfer of millions to the injured. Only the cost of their care.

[E. Pluribus Unum]

The hospitals are required to use those DRGs.

And my point was that the DRGs were never intended to be used for billing purposes, and are not accurate for such purposes.

Government does not care about accuracy. The less accuracy, the more they can pad the bill.

[Little Bill]

In 1971 it cost me $1500 for my son.

[arasina]

One of the big problems is lack of transparency on pricing. It would be like if walked into a McDonald’s where there no prices on the board and they rang you up for a $500 Big Mac after you ordered. Nobody asks how much will this cost before they ask for a procedure nor do hospitals post any prices for treatments so people can make rational care decisions.

Sometimes when you do ask, as my sister did, you are told it depends upon who your insurance company is.

I like your $500 Big Mac analogy and I'm certain it will come in handy for future discussions about this topic. Thanks. =o)

[BfloGuy]

A friend who is in medical billing says its all “software.”

Real people program that software. Banning software won't bring prices down.

[Elendur]

#27 is great! i wish someone like you was in charge.

[count-your-change]

Who gets the bill when some gang banger gets shot and spends weeks in the hospital and months in rehab.?

Does his momma get a bill for tens of thousands of dollars?

[wideminded]

2) Mexico didn’t pay a dime for the research.

Anascorp was developed by a Mexican company called Instituto Bioclon.

1) Anascorp is an orphan drug.. The mfg will never recover the costs of development.

Anascorp had already been available for years in Mexico when it was brought to the US. So the maker, which is a for-profit company, must have been able to recover all their cost of development or they would not have made the drug.

[Blood of Tyrants]

It says that patients are over charged by $10 billion every year. It also says the Americans spend $2.47 Trillion on medical care. 10 billion out of 2.47 trillion is not that much.

[dragnet2]

WHY?? Because allthe ILLEGALS that have no insurance uses them for EVERYTHING and they are NEVER asked to pay a CENT!!!

Parkland Hospital in Dallas #1 in the nation for illegal immigrant births

Parkland handled 11,071 births last year to women who could not provide proof of U.S. citizenship - or 74 percent of the total 14,872 births at the hospital. Most of these women are believed to be in the country illegally.

It was the busiest hospital in the state for such births.

_______________________________________________________

Just think, that's over 1,000 illegal alien births, EVERY MONTH, at just one single hospital in Texas.

And Texas is a red state?

[markman46]

DRG are used by medicare to pay the inpatient stays, outpatient er visits and surgery are paid by a different method, DRG’s are based on the diagnoses codes. sorry for being technical but that is how medicare is currently setup to pay, blame HHS

[markman46]

I was in the hospital in april, the hospital bill came to be about 33,000 my insurance paid 4,000 and I owed the hospital 1255.00, plus ambulance,paramedics,mri,ct, dr’s total came to be about 50,000 and I have to pay about 3,000 for everything.

[Ann Archy]

Good Grief....the UNINSURED are NOT paying the bulk!! That makes no sense. I guess you hate insurance companies....geesh.

[Ann Archy]

EVERYTHING is based on what Medicare pays for.....that’s why the difference is so huge in what the insurance will pay and what the cost really is.

[E. Pluribus Unum]

I am just pointing out that DRGs were never intended for billing purposes and do not reflect costs in any rational way.

But that's what the goobermint uses them for, because the last thing goobermint ever wants to be is honest, about anything.

[artichokegrower]

To clarify, I hate the corporatist fascist relationship insurance companies have with the government.

It has help to destroy free enterprise and self governance in this country.