Posted on 08/07/2018 2:21:58 AM PDT by markomalley
Hospitals will be required to post online a list of their standard charges under a rule finalized Thursday by the Trump administration.
While hospitals are already required to make this information public on request, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) said the new rule would require the info be posted online to "encourage price transparency" and improve "public accessibility."
Starting Jan. 1, hospitals will be required to update the information annually.
The CMS said it is also considering how to "allow consumers to more easily access relevant healthcare data and compare providers."
Increasing price transparency has been a priority for the administration as a way to drive down health-care costs.
"This is a small step towards providing our beneficiaries with price transparency, but our work in this area is only just beginning," CMS Administrator Seema Verma said in a speech last month. "Price transparency is core to patient empowerment and making sure American patients have the tools they need so they can make the best decisions for them and their families."
This sounds good, but unless the consumer understands their risk factors and possible extra charges.
Take a standard baby delivery. Pretty common procedure actually. Unless the mother is a diabetic, overweight, with other complications. Then she is a higher risk.
People are going to be shocked at how expensive their shitty lifestyle choices are making things. And guess what? The hospitals will catch the blame.
When one of my older relatives had to be hospitalized some yrs ago, I publicly said to everyone to look out for the cost of the room, and went on to explain that 1 night in a hospital is more than a 2 week cruise on the most expensive cruise liner. They all laughed at me until they saw the bill some time afterwards.
I think hospitals are badly taking advantage of people, about the pricing of American healthcare.
Myself.
Good for Trump, on this. The healthcare industry is a huge, expensive mess.
Just my opinion.
It is not the hospitals. It’s the “providers.” The doctors/specialists are not hospital employees. The margin for a not for profit, non teaching hospital is about 2%. Read, religious or “community” hospital.
Of course you may share a room with a welfare recipient. But guess what...you are going to get similar treatment and the same medical care.
Most folks like going to the hospitals designed to look and feel like hotels. The meds are the same. The joint commission and CMS requirements are EXACTLY the same. You can already look up prices. Ask your insurance company. They will break it down for you.
The sticker shock is a reasonable reaction. But look at the details. That $156 charge for the two minute visit is not going to the nurse or the guy sweeping the floor. It’s going to YOUR doctor, based on what CMS establishes as a proper charge.
Your reaction is like getting angry at the gas station owner for the price of oil.
They are recklessly overcharging - especially emergency room visits. When I saw the costs for a two hour visit last summer, I almost fainted dead away. I think posting those prices will keep people from SEEKING medical care.
This is a big deal. I tried to get cash prices for specific tests and procedures from a couple of local hospitals last year and the facilities refused. They would only give me a price after seeing a financial counselor and disclosing my income.
And, IIRC, Medicare regs allow rural hospitals to charge more. Wonder how this will affect that.
There is the joke or some other type on anecdotal thing from sometime back in regard to this scenario about living on a cruse ship or in a 5* Hotel and nursing home rates
Ping
And the exhorbitant cost is precisely because government is involved. Ask a defense contractor to do the same thing as a normal company and you will find it costs on the order of 100 times as much.
The defense contractor, in addition to the actual work, has to prove they employed the required number of three eyed lesbian midgets and pay homage to a thousand other congressionally mandated political causes.
Likewise, hospitals and insurance companies spend more time adhering to goofy regulations than they ever do treating people.
That information has been available online for years now. If people didn’t bother to look it up before what is going to make them do it now?
It’s not available from any hospital in my neck of the woods.
I can only get prices post treatment. I couldn’t find any info on prices prior and I’ve looked repeatedly. My hospital is very, very good, btw, which is one relief.
For each healthcare procedure and item charge are all prices accepted posted?
List price for private pays?
and
contracted prices to each of all insurance companies accepted?
and
prices paid by government agencies such as Medicare and Medicaid?
and charity prices ????
those are the real prices.
True - but having the “menu” posted helps the decision process - folks generally know the difference between a ‘high-class” mall and an outlet complex...seeing the difference in different sets of providers may make a difference.
Price does not equal amount to be paid in the bizzaro economic world of medicine.
Which price? There are thousands of codes for items, and there are lots of prices, depending on who is paying. Even insurance company employees sometimes can’t figure out what something should cost. I don’t work in that field, but I hope people who do work in insurance and fields related to medical pricing will add information here.
I was in and out of an endoscopy clinic in less than 2 hours last month and just got the statement from Premera today.
The total cost:almost $5600. The insurance company allowed them $2600, about $260 of which I will have to pay.
This is outpatient care. It’s chilling to think what a stay in the hospital costs now.
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