Posted on 05/10/2013 9:19:32 AM PDT by JerseyanExile
Consumers on Wednesday will finally get some answers about one of modern life’s most persistent mysteries: how much medical care actually costs.
For the first time, the federal government will release the prices that hospitals charge for the 100 most common inpatient procedures. Until now, these charges have been closely held by facilities that see a competitive advantage in shielding their fees from competitors. What the numbers reveal is a health-care system with tremendous, seemingly random variation in the costs of services.
In the District, George Washington University’s average bill for a patient on a ventilator was $115,000, while Providence Hospital’s average charge for the same service was just under $53,000. For a lower joint replacement, George Washington University charged almost $69,000 compared with Sibley Memorial Hospital’s average of just under $30,000.
Virginia’s highest average rate for a lower limb replacement was at CJW Medical Center in Richmond, more than $117,000, compared with Winchester Medical Center charging $25,600 per procedure. CJW charged more than $38,000 for esophagitis and gastrointestinal conditions, while Carilion Tazewell Community Hospital averaged $8,100 in those cases.
Maryland has a unique system for hospital rate charges, so differences were smaller, and its average rate was lower than that of any other state in the most common procedures reviewed by The Washington Post. The highest average charge for a lower joint replacement was $36,000 by University of Maryland Medical Center in Baltimore, much lower than the highest rates in other states.
Elsewhere, Las Colinas Medical Center just outside Dallas billed Medicare, on average, $160,832 for lower joint replacements.
Five miles away and on the same street, Baylor Medical Center in Irving, Tex., billed the government an average fee of $42,632.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Assuming the prices are known in advance and some degree of choice in product selection is available.
In this case its anything but that. You couldn’t comparision shop even if you didn’t have a life threatening urgent need.
Goverment forcing the publication of prices for each facility would be a great thing.
Also forcing them to charge the same price for the same service to everyone would be nice too.
Exactly! Somebody has to pay for all the “free” (mandated by federal law) medical procedures done on those “poor” unable-to-pay indigent and/or illegal alien patients. (As well as those who choose not to have insurance cause somebody else has to pay for it.) Otherwise those hospitals go broke.
I am replying not because I care one whit what a pompous blowhard thinks. However, there may be some who are confused by your wholly uncalled-for comment, imagining (mistakenly) that for once you might know what you are talking about. To those I will be happy to provide bills to back up the truthfulness of my post.
I took a fall in the parking lot of Krogers near my home. Broke my patella, and the left side of my body was badly bruised (I am over 70) the hospital did a cat scan because the side of my face was black bruised and my left eye was swollen shut.....cat scan of my head was 5000 dollars. Just being taken into ER by ambulance was 1000 dollars. The Cat scan cost was a great surprise to me...took about 10 minutes....
CT scan machines cost a few million and require special training to use. While $5k is too high the system is set up to appease the insurance industry.
The insurance industry marks the $5k down to about $400 depending on the policy. Most plans used to pay that.
A couple years ago I got very sick and spent 8 days in intensive care. The bill was $185,000 and it saved my life.
You could go to Canada where the CT scan is cheap but you wait 18 months for it. Thats always an option.
to go to canada I need a passport....use to cross to canada all the time for slots and bingo. Not since the laws were changed.++++++When the bills started coming in you could have a company put them in a binder, it looked like a book with so many pages. But the cat scan proved one thing, I DO have a brain irreguardless of what people say...:O)
It’s all about attributing overhead, and that’s all it’s about.
Look: I live in the woods. If I wake up at 0200 with chest pain, I dial 9-1-1 and within 20 minutes there’s a mobile coronary care unit in my driveway. Inside is a trained PA and an uplink to a heart station. The PA gives me drugs that probably stop me from dying on the spot. They roll.
I arrive at the heart center at 0315 where I’m met by an interventional cardiologist and his team (6 people). I’m on the table at 0340. If the study shows surgery is needed, by 0530 the cardiothoracic team is assembled (15 people) and I’m revascularized before the sun comes up.
Now, if the chest pain was just a bad dream, all those people are still getting paid and all that technology is still being paid for.
Multiply that by 365, spread it out over all the air casts and aspirins, and it really adds up.
Too many big words
Auto insurance is one of the big contributors to excessive hospital costs. In the ‘no fault states’, the insurers just treat whatever the hospitals send as a book entry and mail checks until the policy limit is reached. A recent example in lower Delaware had a hospital charging almost $80,000 for 18 hours of limited care until the patient was moved elsewhere. It seems the bill was rushed to the insurer before anyone else could get their hands on the auto insurance stash. The insurance company wrote the check with a small discount and that was that. An insurer like Medicare or Aetna would have fought those charges down to less than half that, I’m sure.
This comparative study is the first worthwhile thing I’ve seen the government do to sensibly address the cost of medical care in this country.
I have had insurances send me a bill and try to by pass medicare and supplemental....Like you say in your answer, I called them and told them to bill medicare and supplemental. I told the gal I will not pay this bill and then in a little while you will bill medicare for the same thing..No problem after that, they went through the right proceedure and like you said, they didn’t get what they wanted me to pay....
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