Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Medical equipment pricing is completely broken when a sling costs $200

latimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

181–190 of 370 posts

Re: Medical equipment pricing is completely broken when a sling costs $200

#181

Post by habosa »

My girlfriend fell skiing and tore her ACL. We were taken down to the mountainside clinic. They were just gonna do a basic check and give her some Advil and a brace.

I asked how much it would cost. They said they were not ALLOWED to tell me. Which is different than not knowing. I told them what insurance I had. They said many people came in with that insurance. I asked how much of the procedure is normally covered. Also apparently a secret.

I just can't see how it's legal to bill someone for services received while refusing to give information on what it will cost. If the bill had been $50k what recourse would I have had?

Re: Medical equipment pricing is completely broken when a sling costs $200

#182

Post by 8ytecoder »

brink wrote: post #4

I just got an itemized bill today for a minor fall I took a couple months back.. On top of the nearly $6k in other charges from the hospital, they charged $531 for one dab of superglue or "liquid stitches" on my forehead for something that would have healed by itself. One of my friends died two years ago from pneumonia. He didn't go to the hospital when symptoms first started because he was afraid of the bills that w…

It’s worth writing a long article about. In the US there’s no cost conscious party that does price shopping or similar to bring the costs down. There’s only cost pushing parties. Hospitals pushes it to insurance, insurance to employers and employers to the govt as a tax write off. The person getting the treatment only looks at where the “best” care is. That is usually a code word for finding the most expensive hospital my insurance will cover. Insurances don’t have the power - and also they mostly don’t care - to negotiate with hospitals. Employers have to provide coverage by law. So they do the least they can to satisfy it. Who in this system keeps the costs in check?

Re: Medical equipment pricing is completely broken when a sling costs $200

#184

Post by tehlike »

dhdudxbeub wrote: post #80

When my wife was 25 weeks pregnant she started feeling ill and we noticed her blood pressure kept going up. We went to the hospital. Turns out she was pretty sick she so they made her stay for 4 days. A few weeks later we had our son’s ashes and a $148,000 bill.

Adding insult to the injury. Im sorry for your loss...

We lost our first, and er visit costed us much less. Few thousands... Didnt have the energy to fight that time...

Re: Medical equipment pricing is completely broken when a sling costs $200

#185

Post by [deleted] »

cpursley wrote: post #83
danans wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> however I fail to understand why nobody really is up for changing this system,where millions upon millions left woth no choice but to struggle anything but basic medical care. Plenty of people are up for changing it. It is quite literally the center of a huge debate at the moment in the Democratic primary, and there is a broad spectrum of changes being proposed, from Medicare for all with price controls to a slight…

> And the Republican party is currently avoiding discussing Are you so sure about that? A republican president recently signed an executive order for more transparent pricing: https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2019/06/24/7355785...

[deleted]

Re: Medical equipment pricing is completely broken when a sling costs $200

#187

Post by lightgreen »

jameshart wrote: post #168
lightgreen wrote: post #95

The hospital sling was $200 according to the article. Amazon sling is $12.99 to $16.99 according to the article. So hospital sling is 12-15 times more expensive. So I suspect that the original writer of the article correctly wrote that hospital sling is 10 times more expensive. Then the editor came and decided that 10 times more expensive looks not as scandalous as 900% more expensive. The result is false precision h…

I have no idea what you're complaining about here. If they had taken the $12.99 price (an actual exact price, with 4 actual significant figures of precision), the $200 bill (also an actual price paid, with five significant figures of precision) is actually, really -not-false-precisely, 1440% more expensive than amazon. They allowed in the article that the sling might be a bit nicer than the ones on amazon - it had so…

> "900% more expensive" is literally just another way of writing "ten times as expensive".

No, it is not.

Same way as "ten times more expensive" is not the same as "10.000000 times more expensive".

Using percentages here implies high precision.

> Would you rather they went with "1000% more expensive"

"10 times more expensive" sound just right.

> I really don't know what kind of editorial sensationalism conspiracy you are trying to posit here.

Sorry, no sensation here. Just false precision which is a bad sign.

Re: Medical equipment pricing is completely broken when a sling costs $200

#188

Post by iamgopal »

tryitnow wrote: post #47

I went to the ER last year. They ended up making me stay overnight. I was hit with a bill for over $10K, with much of that falling on me. I also used to work in corporate finance and I have a good intuition for how billing works. Before I even got the bill I mentally prepared myself for it by telling myself that it's going to be a long drawn out process. I waited and waited and received an initial bill a few months a…

i.e. play the same game that insurance company play with us.

Re: Medical equipment pricing is completely broken when a sling costs $200

#189

Post by ackbar03 »

zaroth wrote: post #114
alexanderdmitri wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Our first born came with a $42k bill. Hospital and doctor said we were covered by our insurance pre-auth, but come bill time apparently pre-auth was null and void b/c it was requisite on a negotiation that fell through. Each side had a different story and their representatives acted absolutely helpless. We were broke at the time we found out about the pregnancy and memories of the first two years of my boy's life are…

You absolutely did the right thing in not paying a cent. There is virtually zero chance you will ever hear another word about it. The $42k is a fantasy figure which they collect approximately 0% of the time. It's the easiest $42k you ever saved.

Is there any way to get this sort of advice for ordinary people easily? I remember when I was an exchange student to the US from Hong Kong and I got a flu, I thought I'd get it checked out just in case. I went to a clinic and they told me to get into a medical robe for a checkup and I thought wtf. I also remembered about reading all these horror stories. Of course it might not have been that bad since I didn't go through with the checkup but it's very different from what we have in hk and China where the doctor just takes a look at you, blood test at most, and gives you some pills, usually for no more than 40usd max

Re: Medical equipment pricing is completely broken when a sling costs $200

#190

Post by dantheman »

jorblumesea wrote: post #143
oppositelock wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I went to the ER with chest pains seeming like a heart attack. They did an EKG, determined it wasn't a heart attack, then a blood test, which determined it was low potassium, and did a chest x-ray just in case. I received a saline IV and potassium pills as treatment, and went home after a couple of hours. The bill was about $18,000 for this. The insurance negotiated rate was about $1,500, of which I had to pay about…

> These people are all acting in violation of tons of existing laws - I don't understand why this isn't prosecuted. $$$$$$. The Medical system is being used to transfer wealth from the working and middle classes to the capital class under the guise of "free market". That money is being used to shape legislation, buy politicians, influence elections and kill threats to the system, allowing for even greater wealth tran…

People can think our system is awful and still not want the European one.
Post reply on HN