The ER charged him $6,589.77 for 6 stitches, cost that led his wife to avoid ER
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Re: The ER charged him $6,589.77 for 6 stitches, cost that led his wife to avoid ER
#2Somehow everybody in this system claims they're not the ones making bank on this swindling. The doctors say they're underpaid. The hospital admin says they're underpaid. The insurance companies say they're barely covering their payouts. So who is lying?
Re: The ER charged him $6,589.77 for 6 stitches, cost that led his wife to avoid ER
#3Maybe I missed it in the article, but if he was injured on the job, shouldn't the construction company pay the bill?
Re: The ER charged him $6,589.77 for 6 stitches, cost that led his wife to avoid ER
#4Somehow everybody in this system claims they're not the ones making bank on this swindling. The doctors say they're underpaid. The hospital admin says they're underpaid. The insurance companies say they're barely covering their payouts. So who is lying?
The hospital and the doctors. Almost $500 for a tetanus shot is simply not justifiable
Re: The ER charged him $6,589.77 for 6 stitches, cost that led his wife to avoid ER
#5Somehow everybody in this system claims they're not the ones making bank on this swindling. The doctors say they're underpaid. The hospital admin says they're underpaid. The insurance companies say they're barely covering their payouts. So who is lying?
All of them
Re: The ER charged him $6,589.77 for 6 stitches, cost that led his wife to avoid ER
#6Somehow everybody in this system claims they're not the ones making bank on this swindling. The doctors say they're underpaid. The hospital admin says they're underpaid. The insurance companies say they're barely covering their payouts. So who is lying?
The hospital and the doctors. Almost $500 for a tetanus shot is simply not justifiable
The doctors likely have nothing to do with how much procedures bill for.
In private practice outside a hospital, they perhaps have more guilt here, but in an ER? They set the prices about as much as the janitors do.
Re: The ER charged him $6,589.77 for 6 stitches, cost that led his wife to avoid ER
#7This is not that bad because he ended with a negotiated rate and paid 1,000 or so. I’ve seen much worse
One cause is political. One place I worked govt would only pay a % of the billable rate - this was so politically they could say program was saving money.
So the ‘rack’ rate went through the roof. The irony? We’d have preferred to charge less to cash payors (this was a nonprofit) because they were much less painful to deal with if they paid when service delivered - but instead it was so costly no one could afford cash payments
Re: The ER charged him $6,589.77 for 6 stitches, cost that led his wife to avoid ER
#8This is absurd. Even in a country with liberal economics and "free choice" health system (however with universal care, and state regulation), the same stitches in a world-class private clinic in Santiago, Chile would cost 400 USD, before insurance. The clinics there are not the ones Americans imagine from a middle-income country, most of them have better infrastructure and doctors than the ones I know in Europe. And I don't even need to start talking about health services in Europe, where I live.
This is the kind of things that show how inviable is a market-led economy without proper regulation. Let the powerful profit from the weak and you'll see this kind of thing every time.
If you compare life expectancy in Chile and some other Latin-American countries with universal care[1], they are higher than in the US, despite being a more unequal and/or poorer.
[1] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/life-expectancy?tab=chart...
Edit: Many commenters miss the point. The US leads the way in too many areas and at least I expect them to be an example of the benefits of free market economy. Some have mentioned that regulation is indeed the problem. I would say, that we need the right regulation so the right incentives are put in place, in benefit of the market and competition. So at best it would be better not to have the industry dictate the regulation.
Re: The ER charged him $6,589.77 for 6 stitches, cost that led his wife to avoid ER
#9Earlier quoted context omitted.
The hospital and the doctors. Almost $500 for a tetanus shot is simply not justifiable
The doctors likely have nothing to do with how much procedures bill for. In private practice outside a hospital, they perhaps have more guilt here, but in an ER? They set the prices about as much as the janitors do.
Yet they still charged roughly $2,000 for a single patient and that is something that did not take the whole day. If I was a physician I'd be happy if I could bill half that amount even if it took me the whole day to treat the patient
Re: The ER charged him $6,589.77 for 6 stitches, cost that led his wife to avoid ER
#10Somehow everybody in this system claims they're not the ones making bank on this swindling. The doctors say they're underpaid. The hospital admin says they're underpaid. The insurance companies say they're barely covering their payouts. So who is lying?
You missed this part: "Both the physicians and the hospital are part of companies recently taken over by private-equity investors."