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Bringing transparency to ER prices, one hospital bill at a time

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Re: Bringing transparency to ER prices, one hospital bill at a time

#41

Post by wonderwonder »

benmorris wrote: post #15
village-idiot wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And the worst thing is that there’s no way to predict the cost. Even if you go to an ER that’s in network (good luck with that in an emergency), you might be assigned an out of network doctor and be charged out of network prices

We've had 2 children in the last 4 years and this concept was foreign to me. Our 2nd child we were billed for an out of network anesthesiologist at an in network hospital. Several thousand dollars in total, I called the insurance after reading online a bit about it. Eventually they said they would "resubmit" the claim for reconsideration. A few weeks later we got an EOB showing we didn't have to pay any of it. The wh…

How could they go out of business? Any time they need money they can just go through patient records and charge for anything they feel like with very little statute of limitations. Its a license to print money at the expense of those that can least afford it.

Re: Bringing transparency to ER prices, one hospital bill at a time

#42

Post by corey_moncure »

robertAngst wrote: post #14
halflings wrote: post #4

I moved to the US about a year ago. Went to ER for the first time ~3 months ago. I was charged about $4000 for: - Cleaning a wound (with water/desinfectant). - Some antibiotics. - A band-aid and gauze. I get how, with labor cost and all, that might cost $200. Maybe $300? I have no idea how this can cost $4000.

Medical is in bed with the government https://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/top.php?indexType=s Heck, if you want to know why something in the US sucks, just look at that list. Massive government corruption from legal bribery.

This is amazing. The list reads like a "who's who" of the most insufferable sectors of American life. I was surprised not to see auto manufacturers and agriculture in the top twenty, but medicine and telecom have definitely got them beat.

Re: Bringing transparency to ER prices, one hospital bill at a time

#43

Post by calebm »

I consider myself a "pragmatic libertarian", and by "pragmatic", I mean I'm in favor of legislative intervention when the free market often goes awry. Examples of this would be combating monopolies (since I don't want feudal system 2.0) , preventing immoral practices (like child labor), and controlling prices when there is no competition at work, such as utilities. It seems that with hospitals, there effectively is no competition-driven pricing pressure due to unpublished pricing. This seems like a place ripe for legislative intervention... but perhaps the medical industry is so bad that it would be better to just nationalize it.

Re: Bringing transparency to ER prices, one hospital bill at a time

#44

Post by umvi »

irrational wrote: post #12
halflings wrote: post #4

I moved to the US about a year ago. Went to ER for the first time ~3 months ago. I was charged about $4000 for: - Cleaning a wound (with water/desinfectant). - Some antibiotics. - A band-aid and gauze. I get how, with labor cost and all, that might cost $200. Maybe $300? I have no idea how this can cost $4000.

Not just ER. We went to urgent care with a bean stuck up my sons nose. The doctor spent about 30 seconds getting it out. We were in and out in 10 minutes or so. The bill was $2000.

Is that what you had to pay out of pocket? With or without insurance?

Re: Bringing transparency to ER prices, one hospital bill at a time

#45

Post by wonderwonder »

Anecdotal story, a few years ago my dad had a heart attack. He was self employed, living the american dream so no insurance. He had to stay 2 nights plus ambulance ride. Total bill ~80k. I kid you not, 3 days after he got out my mom shattered her wrist and was taken to emergency surgery. ~40K. They wracked up a bill slightly less than their mortgage in under a week.

Of course they could not pay and the hospital dropped it down to something affordable over a long period of time. How could the hospital expect anyone to pay either of the bills? Don't get me wrong, hospitals and doctors do amazing things and deserve to get paid well, but their has to be some sort of reality applied to the billing process or they are just breaking people.

Re: Bringing transparency to ER prices, one hospital bill at a time

#47

Post by novalis78 »

wonderwonder wrote: post #45

Anecdotal story, a few years ago my dad had a heart attack. He was self employed, living the american dream so no insurance. He had to stay 2 nights plus ambulance ride. Total bill ~80k. I kid you not, 3 days after he got out my mom shattered her wrist and was taken to emergency surgery. ~40K. They wracked up a bill slightly less than their mortgage in under a week. Of course they could not pay and the hospital dropp…

A similar motivation got a friend and me started with pricepain.com - but the ACA made us take a step back and see if anything changed / got better... apparently not. Though some of these state bills that try to force more transparency have since pushed the topic a bit further. Still so far from a market place.

Re: Bringing transparency to ER prices, one hospital bill at a time

#48

Post by dang »

smacktoward wrote: post #9

As the person who submitted this story, I have a question: why was Sarah Kliff’s name removed from the headline? I submitted it with the same title it carries at CJR, which includes her name. The story is a profile of her and her work, so removing it makes the headline less informative, not more. And she’s not a celebrity, so mentioning her by name doesn’t make the headline any more clickbaity than it would be withou…

We often remove names from titles, because HN works better when the focus is on content rather than personalities.

https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...

Re: Bringing transparency to ER prices, one hospital bill at a time

#49

Post by wonderwonder »

novalis78 wrote: post #47
wonderwonder wrote: post #45

Anecdotal story, a few years ago my dad had a heart attack. He was self employed, living the american dream so no insurance. He had to stay 2 nights plus ambulance ride. Total bill ~80k. I kid you not, 3 days after he got out my mom shattered her wrist and was taken to emergency surgery. ~40K. They wracked up a bill slightly less than their mortgage in under a week. Of course they could not pay and the hospital dropp…

A similar motivation got a friend and me started with pricepain.com - but the ACA made us take a step back and see if anything changed / got better... apparently not. Though some of these state bills that try to force more transparency have since pushed the topic a bit further. Still so far from a market place.

Checked out the site, very cool concept. Obviously needs some polish but the idea could be very monetizable if you can get traffic. Nice work.

Re: Bringing transparency to ER prices, one hospital bill at a time

#50

Post by darkerside »

xienze wrote: post #30
halflings wrote: post #4

I moved to the US about a year ago. Went to ER for the first time ~3 months ago. I was charged about $4000 for: - Cleaning a wound (with water/desinfectant). - Some antibiotics. - A band-aid and gauze. I get how, with labor cost and all, that might cost $200. Maybe $300? I have no idea how this can cost $4000.

Part of it is because consumers are completely detached from the price aspect of medical care. Getting an estimate, shopping around? Forget it. It’s a black box. And, frankly, part of it is because hospitals can’t refuse care to anyone and if they can’t pay, someone else has to.

It's crazy because the initial idea was, insurers would be more educated buyers and thus better able to negotiate with medical providers. As it turns out, with no skin in the game, they hardly seem to care to negotiate prices at all!
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