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Hospitals pledge to fight admin price transparency plan in court

healthcaredive.com

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Re: Hospitals pledge to fight admin price transparency plan in court

#221

Post by vonmoltke »

sol_remmy2 wrote: post #131
madamelic wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Hard to grasp how a huge power like the US can't get itself around decently-priced healthcare. To be honest, it's not that hard to figure out. The US gov't largely believes itself is ineffective and needs to be privatized and ran like a business. Private businesses are held up as beacons of innovation and efficiency without the "red tape" the gov't has due to purposefully created checks, balances and regulations. He…

> The US gov't largely believes itself is ineffective and needs to be privatized and ran like a business. Private businesses are held up as beacons of innovation and efficiency without the "red tape" the gov't has due to purposefully created checks, balances and regulations. The medical system is really not private. It is a hybrid of a state-controlled system and a capitalistic system. Here are some ways of how the s…

> 4. Medicare/Medicaid are forced to nearly buy any drug, regardless of cost, if it could save a live. Even if a drug is 500k/year, the system is forced to buy it. This is not a free market and greatly increases costs.

No, they aren't. Medicare Part D plans are not required to cover any particular drugs, though what they choose to cover is subject to approval by CMS.

See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medicare_Part_D#Plan_formulari...

Re: Hospitals pledge to fight admin price transparency plan in court

#222

Post by smileysteve »

noelsusman wrote: post #124
mavhc wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So only send it to email services that support TLS, ie 99% of them

Not secure in the sense that it's encrypted, though that's part of it. Secure in the sense that you know you're communicating with the patient and only the patient, not their spouse, or their grandson, or Google's servers.

> or Google's servers

But it's fine if it's (approved and) over a telecom provider as long as the medium is unencrypted facsimile.

Re: Hospitals pledge to fight admin price transparency plan in court

#223

Post by Red_Leaves_Flyy »

ddlatham wrote: post #203
bduerst wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hospital networks usually have you sign a waiver agreeing to pay for all costs before treatment begins. It's a bit strange to be waiting in the ER and a have a billing handler ask you to sign a form on a clipboard before you can get service.

Regardless of what the cost is? What prevents them from charging you 2x or 10x or 100x more after the fact?

Just their conscience it seems.

Looks like the healthcare industry is following the mob playbook.

Re: Hospitals pledge to fight admin price transparency plan in court

#224

Post by smileysteve »

bluGill wrote: post #114
legitster wrote: post #8

The previous administration had a similar effort that failed. I hope that this effort is successful. >"For instance, it could allow one provider to follow and match the prices of the other provider (like two gas stations across the street from one another who face no other competition)," Garmon said. I understand this argument, but I think they underrate how much people are willing to shop around when they actually h…

I'd pay more for quality. If I knew hospital X is better at hip replacement I'd pay extra to go there. Of course how much extra I'm not sure, and I'm also not sure how you compare hip replacement quality like that. It is only emergency rooms where I don't get a choice - if you need an emergency room close is important.

> I'd pay more for quality. If I knew hospital X is better at hip replacement I'd pay extra to go there.

Recently, HSAs and transparent prices were proposed by a Marketwatch article on HN.

But, assuming you have a average America "Max Out Of Pocket", price transparency over this amount doesn't have the intended effect or perhaps, as you point out, the opposite effect.

Re: Hospitals pledge to fight admin price transparency plan in court

#225

Post by fbanks »

Additional anecdata: Enjoyed an extended honeymoon through Thailand, Singapore, and Malaysia in 2016 and my wife was bitten by a stray dog in rural Thailand early on -> 7 medical interactions involving post-exposure prophylaxis and rabies shots in all 3 countries over that next month. (She's fine BTW!). Price transparency was really amazing in all these places and I think it might be a single reform that's broadly ameliorative of the max-friction / painful experience of US healthcare. In each country, we basically called around, asked "do you have this shot and how much is it" and got a more or less straight answer, despite having some language issues everywhere but Singapore. Whole experience cost ~ $1k, including some visits for 2nd opinions to high-end private clinic in Singapore and we just gave up bothering with it on our US insurance b/c of deductibles and hassle.

Re: Hospitals pledge to fight admin price transparency plan in court

#226

Post by charwalker »

TheSoftwareGuy wrote: post #177
legitster wrote: post #8

The previous administration had a similar effort that failed. I hope that this effort is successful. >"For instance, it could allow one provider to follow and match the prices of the other provider (like two gas stations across the street from one another who face no other competition)," Garmon said. I understand this argument, but I think they underrate how much people are willing to shop around when they actually h…

>I understand this argument, but I think they underrate how much people are willing to shop around when they actually have prices to use as a metric. If prices are transparent enough, eventually bored programmers will create websites & other tools that make it super simple to find the lowest cost provider in any non-emergency situation, and probably even emergency situations if you are looking ahead of time

Google Maps does this for gas prices, how much more to implement a public listing or "menu" for a hospital or clinic based on published rates?

Re: Hospitals pledge to fight admin price transparency plan in court

#227

Post by Red_Leaves_Flyy »

legitster wrote: post #8

The previous administration had a similar effort that failed. I hope that this effort is successful. >"For instance, it could allow one provider to follow and match the prices of the other provider (like two gas stations across the street from one another who face no other competition)," Garmon said. I understand this argument, but I think they underrate how much people are willing to shop around when they actually h…

If you have the money no one is stopping you from going to India or Mexico. Many of their doctors learn in the US

Re: Hospitals pledge to fight admin price transparency plan in court

#228

Post by bduerst »

ddlatham wrote: post #203
bduerst wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hospital networks usually have you sign a waiver agreeing to pay for all costs before treatment begins. It's a bit strange to be waiting in the ER and a have a billing handler ask you to sign a form on a clipboard before you can get service.

Regardless of what the cost is? What prevents them from charging you 2x or 10x or 100x more after the fact?

Yes. It is nearly impossible to determine the cost of treatment up front when the health cause is still unknown.

You could be there for a common cold or for phase 4 lung cancer, with costs ranging widely even just for the diagnostic procedures. You're agreeing up front to pay for the service involved to determine and eventually treat your symptoms.

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