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

latimes.com

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

#221

Post by fma »

GordonS wrote: post #25
fma wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We asked for an itemized price list when my wife gave birth. They claimed she received lactation consultation even though she rejected it, as this was our 2nd baby. Despite having documentation saying so it went back and forth and we just paid it because it was too time consuming. Anyways. In the itemized bill they charge about $40 per ibuprofen. If we knew the price, we should have brought our own and just rejected…

Out of interest, can I ask how much the "lactation consultation" cost? Here in the UK, my wife's breast feeding help consisted of an inexperienced midwife (possibly only a trainee), awkwardly being remarkably unhelpful.

I believe it was $200. For our first daughter ours was helpful. We took a class (paid by ourselves) before hand but it definitely helps to have someone walk through it with your actual baby. However for each delivery the nurses knew enough to be helpful too.

Also, since my wife has had surgery to remove a benign tumor in her breast, lactation consultation was covered the first time. No idea WTF happened the second time. This is the US medical system for you.

I'd also like to add we received a random bill for our first daughter 2 years later. No idea what it was, but the insurance covered all of it so I didn't care.

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

#222

Post by metaphor »

HorizonXP wrote: post #167

I realize that this article and the HN comments are centred on the US, but here's a link to the Schedule of Benefits (i.e. the costs) for all insured services that are compensated for by the Ontario Health Insurance Plan (OHIP): http://www.health.gov.on.ca/en/pro/programs/ohip/sob/ Meaning, while most Canadians do not know what our healthcare actually costs, it's all itemized, standardized, and freely available. I ju…

Thanks for the reference. I'm not Canadian, but it was very enlightening to browse through and surprisingly well organized.

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

#223

Post by Ididntdothis »

lopmotr wrote: post #140
hurrdurr2 wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The lobby for insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies, and hospital chains spend ungodly amounts of money to influence our political process. Once all the politicians are bought and paid for everything becomes kosher.

For some reason, Americans keep complaining about the same problems with their government over and over again - particularly lobbying, and yet every election they nearly universally reject all their concerns in favor of tribalism and vote for the same two parties that are responsible for everything they don't want, or nobody at all, which has the same effect. Wouldn't it be fun if whenever somebody criticizes their g…

“People rationalize it by saying that voting for a 3rd party is "wasting" their vote,”

I guess I am stubborn but I will never vote for one of the two big parties. However it would be great if smaller parties got some kind of representation in Congress. It seems ridiculous that in the 90s Ross Perot got 20% of the vote but that resulted in zero representation.

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

#224

Post by danans »

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...

The centerpiece of their plan is removing the protections provided by Obamacare, like pre-existing conditions coverage, the state insurance exchanges, and getting rid of the Medicaid expansion. They don't want to talk about any of that right now, even though it was the central refrain of what they ran on 4 years ago.

But that's smart actually. They correctly realize that it is political suicide to run on taking health protections away from people at this time.

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

#225

Post by Ididntdothis »

dantheman wrote: post #190
jorblumesea wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

There is no single European one. There is a whole range of systems that are very different.

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

#226

Post by brians »

MegaButts wrote: post #194
dragonwriter wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yeah, but when you pay for services you don't expect to have to write checks for every subcontractor your service provider users. Well, yeah, that's true by the definition of “subcontractor”, which doctors in hospitals often are not. OTOH, healthcare isn't the only place where you might pay a fee to a facility for use of the facility and a fee to a service providers associated with the facility for services they pr…

> OTOH, healthcare isn't the only place where you might pay a fee to a facility for use of the facility and a fee to a service providers associated with the facility for services they provide in the facility. Where else does this occur?

Weddings: you pay the caterer directly, even if the facility dictates which caterer you use

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

#227

Post by nonymouse22 »

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…

Sorry about your friend.

Similar to your situation, I went to a dermatologist concerned about a bump. Turned out to be a skin tag which she cheerily said "We can take care of this right now" and snipped. That snip cost $250 (wasn't on the genitals but was close enough for them to bump up the cost). I called their billing company and spoke to their office manager. She said that "the doctor just wants to make sure customers are happy and doesn't really concern herself with the billing part" when I brought up that if something is going to cost something they should say so upfront if it's something not necessary.

Thanks for the heads up about the glue. They really do take advantage even when you're a bad situation.

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

#228

Post by rahuldottech »

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.

I'm so, so sorry for your loss.

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

#229

Post by dhdudxbeub »

tehlike wrote: post #184
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...

:( sorry - it sucks

We had insurance so we didn’t pay that crazy amount but it’s just absurd what these places charge.

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

#230

Post by privateSFacct »

ConcernedCoder wrote: post #176
abhorrence wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does this work with institutions like Kaiser? Are their hospitals not technically hospitals? Or are the physicians all technically contractors there?

They are all salaried employees, so Kaiser can work from a 'fixed cost' perspective ( as told to me by a surgical nurse ).

100% false! That would be totally illegal. California CLEARLY bans hospitals from doing this.
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