Log In | Register
Paul Ginsburg, president of the Center for Studying Health System Change, a research organization in Washington, says published hospital charges are "useless for consumers." One reason, as Rose discovered, is that hospital prices are moving targets, varying with patients' needs and doctors' treatment strategies.
"Every doctor does it differently," says Dr. Steve Neeleman, a surgeon at Intermountain Healthcare in Utah. Doctors, who are usually not hospital employees, may not be thinking about costs when they choose treatments, he says. Complications may also lead to bigger bills, though Rose's surgeon noted there were none in his case.
Estimates Are Unreliable
Patients can't depend on estimates because they're often based on a hospital's average charges for treatments. For instance, Tampa General Hospital charged as little as $48,631 and as much as $89,969 for gall bladder removals between July 2008 and June 2009, according to a Florida state website created under a 2004 price transparency law.
When bills come in above the estimate, patients have little recourse.
Want To Know What A Hospital Charges? Good Luck
Article Source: kaiserhealthnews.org- Enjoy this article? Help vote it up the 'Vine.
- Public Discussion (4)
Price information could be made useful to consumers by requiring hospitals to publish prices for set diagnoses or procedures, rather than the charge lists of individual items, experts say. That way, there would be a single price for a gall bladder removal or hip replacement.
"If the goal is for Americans to understand it,” and be able to compare prices, "then one number is the only way to go," said Gerard Anderson, a health policy professor at Johns Hopkins University.
Rep. Steve Kagen, D-Wis., a physician who is sponsoring theTransparency in All Health Care Pricing Act, observed at a congressional hearing last month that Subway restaurants charge flat rates for sandwiches no matter which toppings customers choose. "If the owners of Subway can figure out how to make money by lumping their prices," he said, "so can our nation's hospitals."
Don't you think hospitals have a vested interest in keeping it confusing? Here's more info on Dr. Kagen's bill: Transparency in All Health Care Pricing Act.
- 2 votes
#1 - Wed Jun 30, 2010 12:21 PM EDTCarloz
It's a damned nightmare, and I can testify to that first hand. Being uninsured, it's crucial to me to know what a procedure or course of treatment will cost me before I agree to pursue it. See the third paragraph of this article to learn what happened when I tried pinning down two hospitals on their prices.
About a month ago I discussed this with my new primary care physician. He told me frankly that the system is indeed so screwed up that it is incapable of quoting prices in certain situations. Hell, I get better service from my automobile mechanic than from some medical practitioners.
Don't you think hospitals have a vested interest in keeping it confusing?
They do indeed. That way when they find a pigeon they can fleece (e.g., Rick Ace) they can go right for his wallet, no questions asked.
- 2 votes
Oh, and about this ...
For instance, Tampa General Hospital charged as little as $48,631 and as much as $89,969 for gall bladder removals between July 2008 and June 2009, according to a Florida state website created under a 2004 price transparency law.
WTF??? You sedate the patient, slice open the abdomen, snip the thing out, patch the wound the removal caused, make sure you didn't leave anything in the patient that doesn't belong there, suture the incision, and send the patient to an inpatient bed for a day or so to monitor recovery. My boss had his removed at NYU Medical Center in the 1990s, easy peasy. Ten grand at the most, and if I ever have mine removed that's as much as I'll fork over. Send me the damned bills, sic your collection agency on me. Sorry guys, I'm unemployed and uninsured. It won't be me paying for your new Mercedes or Jag.
- 2 votes
Healthcare is one of the most inefficient industries in the United States. It is also a broken market for this very reason: you can't get a price.
My sister-in-law is uninsured. She thought she need a colonoscopy, so she and my wife started price shopping at local hospitals. They contacted ten places. At five of the ten, they were never able to talk to someone who could give them a quote. The people on the phone just didn't know, or even know where to get the information.
At the other five, the prices ranged from $170 to $5000--and they even use the same brand of colonoscope. The $5000 people offered a 40% discount, but, not surprisingly, sis-in-law went to the free-standing clinic for $170.
My wife and sister-in-law spend a lot of time keeping the healthcare system from killing my mother-in-law, a truly delightful woman who just celebrated her 91st birthday. They regularly ask 'Why does she need this treatment?' The answer they get most often is, "Oh, don't worry. It's covered."
That's not why they are asking. They want to know if the procedure is medically necessary; that is, is this procedure for the good of the patient, or for the good of the hospital's bottom line?
Notice that we don't see any advertising for most surgical procedures, other than eye surgery--the stuff not covered by insurance. The pricing mechanism in this market is so broken that the market is itself a failure.
#2 - Wed Jun 30, 2010 6:07 PM EDTYou're in Easy Mode. If you prefer, you can use XHTML Mode instead. |
