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Show HN: I mapped US medical prices. Save thousands by driving a few miles

bestmedicareprice.com

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Re: Show HN: I mapped US medical prices. Save thousands by driving a few miles

#21

Post by phren0logy »

ajiang wrote: post #10
jaibot wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there evidence of correlation?

The next step would be to bring in death/complication statistics by hospital and ratings by surgeon

I would hesitate to interpret this so naively. For example, there are some vascular surgeons who take on patients that nobody else will touch. These are patients with many bad prognostic risk factors, but they will die without the surgery.

The surgeons who take these patients may end up having terrible stats, but be the most skilled if only because their mortality rate is not pushing 100%.

Comparing this statistic the way people compare gas mileage is a disincentive for these surgeons to operate on patients that need help, but are high risk.

Re: Show HN: I mapped US medical prices. Save thousands by driving a few miles

#22

Post by neilsharma »

enra wrote: post #14

Saw this couple of weeks ago http://pricemaps.betterdoctor.com/

Thanks for the link--haven't seen this. I think they use a different data set for the procedure prices, but I like how they also compare it to a quality ranking. I will look more into how US News quantified hospital scores.

What I think matters most for healthcare is not just price, but quality/cost. Quality is difficult to measure, but should factor in recovery speed, number of repeat-procedures, service, etc.

Re: Show HN: I mapped US medical prices. Save thousands by driving a few miles

#23

Post by malandrew »

codex wrote: post #11
jaibot wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there evidence of correlation?

If you were a doctor, would you rather charge more, or less? What keeps you from charging the highest fees in the world? Your reputation. If you're not the best, you cannot charge the most. All of capitalism works this way.

This also creates an incentive to decouple the cost for the doctor from the cost of the hospital (operating room use, bed use, supplies, nurses, etc.)

Re: Show HN: I mapped US medical prices. Save thousands by driving a few miles

#24

Post by carbocation »

ajiang wrote: post #10
jaibot wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there evidence of correlation?

The next step would be to bring in death/complication statistics by hospital and ratings by surgeon

Selection bias (by the physicians) should make that extremely challenging. You could adjust for underlying comorbidities, though that will often not give enough adjustment to make an impartial expert observer feel that it is sufficient.

Re: Show HN: I mapped US medical prices. Save thousands by driving a few miles

#26

Post by dougmccune »

What's the consumer use for this? Is it for people without insurance? From what I understand this is the rate that Medicare has negotiated from these providers. But I assume this isn't for people with Medicare, since those people are covered with Medicare. I assume the dollar values don't have much relation to the reality that an uninsured individual would be billed, since Medicare negotiates pretty aggressively for prices that "normal" people or even normal insurance plans can't get.

I'm just not understanding what you learn from this other than what Medicare gets reimbursed. And I'm not understanding how knowing that is actionable in any way for the average person.

Re: Show HN: I mapped US medical prices. Save thousands by driving a few miles

#28

Post by carbocation »

enra wrote: post #14

Saw this couple of weeks ago http://pricemaps.betterdoctor.com/

Interesting. The prices listed by this tool are very different from the prices listed in the tool in this Show HN post. I wonder how their data differ?
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