If We Had A Medical Section I'd Put This In It

[The Valkyrie]

Sometime back I mentioned that I had spent a night in a hospital for “observation.”  The Yanks on the board will understand this so the information is principally being given to residents of more civilized nations which have National Health Care systems of one type or another.  Now, I am on Medicare so out of all of this my total cost was $80 in co-pays.  The total billed was $16,558.00.  Medicare had the good sense to tell them to go fuck themselves but even they paid $3,079.68.  I can only assume that the purpose of even issuing such outrageous bills is to create some sort of write-off of the difference.
 
So here is a representative sample of some of the charges on the statement.
“Critical Care – First Hour”  $5,344.70.  As near as I could tell this “critical care” consisted of parking my ass on a gurney and attaching a clothespin type sensor to my finger which was connected to a monitor which beeped constantly and annoyingly.  At some point a doctor walked in and talked to me for a little while but that was a separate charge of $802.00.
 
Now much of their jargon is incomprehensible but I was able to use the web to figure out that a TTEw/Doppler was an echocardiogram.  It took about a half hour and cost $1,982.30 as far as the hospital was concerned.  Medicare said “Fuck off.”  Next I figured out that a drug they gave me was something called Lovenox.  When I went on Google for the cost of Lovenox there were people who were outraged that it cost $55.00 per shot and at least one shot was needed everyday.  That would be a minimum of $1,600 per month for those people.  My one shot of Lovenox was billed at $552.00.  Again, Medicare was unimpressed! 


The last obvious basis for comparison was an EKG which, when done at the doctor’s office cost $17.10.  In the hospital, it was $489.20 and they did it twice.

Obviously these amounts are meaningless for Medicare patients.  If you have private insurance you are sort of at the mercy of whatever the insurance company is able to negotiate.  BUT, if you don’t have insurance, you are financially fucked flat by an “observational” one night stay in a hospital where they didn’t really do much of anything except annoy the piss out of me all night and make sure that I didn’t get any sleep.

Don’t let any politician tell you that the “private sector” can do it better.

Holy fucking shit!

$802 for a doctor visit?  In the hospital?  For a few minutes?

I'm in the wrong country!

[Losty]

I bright this up in another thread. Most hospitals struggle to break even. Negotiated rates and the ability to cover costs for those that don't pay is a convoluted mess.

http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/0...imer/?_r=0

Drill into the linked paper for what the authors describe as chaos.

In short, anyone that believes the prices itemized on their hospital bill have anything to do with what's actually being charged is also likely to believe they're actually getting 50-75% off clothing at Kohls. Insurance companies and Medicare/Medicaid have negotiated rates regardless of what the itemization says; therefore, Medicare isn't telling the hospital to fuck off, just simply paying the negotiated rate.

If there was medical care for those who can't afford it we wouldn't have this problem with hospitals getting a ton of people who don't pay.

If we had a real system in place (aka if we become a real first world country instead of just pretending) we would not have this problem. I work two jobs and barely afford to make payments on my medical bills. What about people who can't work two jobs? What about people who can't find a job? It's not the fault of the people or the hospitals. It's the system. The healthcare system sucks.

[Minimalist]

I bright this up in another thread. Most hospitals struggle to break even. Negotiated rates and the ability to cover costs for those that don't pay is a convoluted mess.

http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/0...imer/?_r=0

Drill into the linked paper for what the authors describe as chaos.

In short, anyone that believes the prices itemized on their hospital bill have anything to do with what's actually being charged is also likely to believe they're actually getting 50-75% off clothing at Kohls. Insurance companies and Medicare/Medicaid have negotiated rates regardless of what the itemization says; therefore, Medicare isn't telling the hospital to fuck off, just simply paying the negotiated rate.

They struggle to break even because they have to provide emergency care to all who appear.

https://www.acep.org/news-media-top-banner/emtala/

The Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA) is a federal law that requires anyone coming to an emergency department to be stabilized and treated, regardless of their insurance status or ability to pay, but since its enactment in 1986 has remained an unfunded mandate.

Those who can get in under Medicaid rules will get the hospital some reimbursement but this is, essentially, the whole problem with health care in the US.  There is no real incentive for hospitals to do much more than the basics because without some form of insurance they cannot even admit them and suck the insurance dry.  They know damn well these people, indigent mainly, will never be back until the next catastrophe. 

Thus when the republicunts say "they can just go to the emergency room" they are effectively saying that such people can use the most expensive care available AND no one is going to pay for it.