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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

#141

Post by vishnugupta »

smcleod wrote: post #27

I'm in my mid 30s and have left fixing up some damaged teeth and my large wisdom teeth impacted for 17 years too long, this Monday I'm going to get them removed under general anaesthetic at a private hospital. The Australian government covers hardly any dental unless your teeth have completely rotted through and are chasing other issues. So far my costs are: - $4500 in fillings and general dental. - $1800 for a crown…

For comparison, I got my wisdom tooth extracted for INR 3500 (AUD 65) in India a few weeks ago.

Re: The ER charged him $6,589.77 for 6 stitches, cost that led his wife to avoid ER

#142

Post by wombatmobile »

OJFord wrote: post #91
wombatmobile wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The service and technology gets better while the price continues to go down. What did you think the farmer who was charged $6,589.77 for 6 stitches might have to say about that proposition?

GP is talking about: > any healthcare procedure that is not typically covered by insurance Which I (not American) assume stitches in the emergency room are.

Yeah that doesn’t preclude the farmer from having an opinion about the proposition.

Why do you think this discrepancy occurs?

Re: The ER charged him $6,589.77 for 6 stitches, cost that led his wife to avoid ER

#143

Post by vishnugupta »

pid-1 wrote: post #113
smcleod wrote: post #27

I'm in my mid 30s and have left fixing up some damaged teeth and my large wisdom teeth impacted for 17 years too long, this Monday I'm going to get them removed under general anaesthetic at a private hospital. The Australian government covers hardly any dental unless your teeth have completely rotted through and are chasing other issues. So far my costs are: - $4500 in fillings and general dental. - $1800 for a crown…

For those prices, odds are one could save money by traveling to Brazil and getting dental care in a top clinic in São Paulo or Rio de Janeiro. There must be other countries with cheap care. Someone should make a startup for that.

Medical tourism is a good business in India to cater to exactly such cases. They also advertise these all inclusive prices.

Re: The ER charged him $6,589.77 for 6 stitches, cost that led his wife to avoid ER

#144

Post by learc83 »

legutierr wrote: post #23
ceejayoz wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I've had doctors in the ER bill directly out of their own practice several times. Out of network, but I've had no choice in the matter except to receive treatment or refuse treatment for life-threatening conditions. The law here has changed since then to prohibit this kind of thing, though.

In the case where an ER doctor isn’t employed by the hospital, they are likely employed by a physicians’s group. These used to be ran by physicians, but now many of them have been bought up and consolidated by private equity.

The doctors likely have very little say in the pricing.

Re: The ER charged him $6,589.77 for 6 stitches, cost that led his wife to avoid ER

#145

Post by wombatmobile »

LinAGKar wrote: post #97
refurb wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The plastic surgery and vision correction industries work pretty well in the US. You see price competition and patients have the ability to shop around and make choices that are important to them (references from other patients, doctor personality, etc). Now contrast that with going to a hospital for a procedure where you have time to shop around. Can you get a price? No. Can you easily get appointments with doctors…

>What’s the difference? The difference is that one is completely optional and you can spend as much time as you want comparing options, while the other you're forced to do on a whim at whatever place is closest. You can't shop around when you're bleeding out, as in the article. And such emergency health care constitutes most of these surprise bill situations.

You’re missing two key element of the process - the willingness to exploit, and the lack of alternatives.

Re: The ER charged him $6,589.77 for 6 stitches, cost that led his wife to avoid ER

#146

Post by happytoexplain »

Hakashiro wrote: post #126

I always find interesting to read these stories because nowhere else but the US can you make over 300k USD a year as a senior engineer of some kind. In Europe, 200k EUR is already ridiculous, and most countries take away half your salary in taxes anyway so... Would you rather make 300k and pay 4k for the occasional ER visit or make 50k after tax and pay 100 for the occasional ER visit? I suppose this comment will get…

>Would you rather make 300k and pay 4k for the occasional ER visit or make 50k after tax and pay 100 for the occasional ER visit?

The trend you're describing is true, but this is an extremely unrealistic average comparison designed only to support a point of view.

Re: The ER charged him $6,589.77 for 6 stitches, cost that led his wife to avoid ER

#147

Post by alistairSH »

smabie wrote: post #48
blackhaz wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some people somewhere, with cigars, in $5,000 suits. "Look at all those schmucks! $400 per shot and $1,000 per stitch." The whole healthcare system needs to be regulated by the government end-to-end. All procurement must be transparent. Every cent traced. Pharma mafia dismantled - on a federal level.

Who are these people? Where are they? Not really convinced they exist.

Whoever categorized the subject’s stitches as a Level 4 trauma, for starters. That was damn near fraudulent.

Re: The ER charged him $6,589.77 for 6 stitches, cost that led his wife to avoid ER

#148

Post by jmclnx »

Eliminate all political donations from non-humans.

That is the biggest issue, thanks to Citizens United Ruling by Republican Supreme Court Appointees, people in the US votes have no power any more. As soon as someone gets elected the do not give a crap about the public. That is when money starts flowing to them in large amounts to push corporate agendas.

Republicans are very good at this game, notice how they are able to block even tiniest efforts are political reform.

Re: The ER charged him $6,589.77 for 6 stitches, cost that led his wife to avoid ER

#149

Post by LightG »

rsj_hn wrote: post #115
LightG wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cool story. So what you're saying is there is an horrendous creeping bueaucracy cost here. Funny, because that's exactly what free market proponents argue is the cause of inefficiency in publicly managed healthcare systems, and the reason to move towards models based on the US system. Someone is lying.

The costs are more diffuse than this. First, the U.S. system costs twice as much as other systems because we have more people employed delivering care and they make higher salaries. Doctors, nurses, they all make more in the U.S. than in Europe. So more people, getting paid higher wage, results in double the costs. But wait, the financing in the U.S. is quite predatory, so a lot of people pay nothing, and a few peopl…

Ok, I'll take all of that at face value and as given. It just sounds completely broken over there and I'm not sure I will manage to wrap my head around it.

All I know is simpler systems around the world exist and work such that those 10 middle class families would never get stiffed like that, whilst also looking after the needy.

I can't fathom it.

Re: The ER charged him $6,589.77 for 6 stitches, cost that led his wife to avoid ER

#150

Post by sjogress »

edgyquant wrote: post #68
aerodog wrote: post #22

Washington Hospital in the Bay Area charged me $2,010 for a COVID test when I went to their ER. Later I was told I was stupid for having gone to the ER to do the test there. I just never suspected they would charge that much.

In this case it seems like the steep price is to prevent frivolously using the emergency room. You can get covid tests dirt cheap (or free) if you schedule and appointment at a hospital or one of the testing sites. Emergency room has to have capacity to take on actual life threatening emergencies.

It seems like you've done the research here: how do you know how you are supposed(?) to do the test in the US?

Here in my municipality in Norway the media keeps repeating how/where/when to get tested, and if anything important changes the municipality will literally send a SMS to all its citizens to ensure as many as possible are up to date.

From my admittedly limited experience with the US (NYC/tri-state area) I get the impression that information is often hard to find and hard to understand. This could of course be caused by cultural or lingual differences since I'm neither American nor a native English speaker.

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