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Hospital creates bidding war by posting pricing online

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Re: Hospital creates bidding war by posting pricing online

#151

Post by jljljl »

refurb wrote: post #143
jljljl wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wasn't talking specifically about people with cancer who have plenty of time to research which clinic is most cost effective. I stated in my post: "If I'm in the hospital with an emergency or critical condition , I probably don't have the option of fully researching or understanding my options." Just because situations exist where you have time to research, doesn't mean you always have time to do so. And a healthca…

Point taken. However, keep in mind that even when it's an emergency, you often have choices. For example, if you just had a heart attack, they will often stabilize you then talk about further options. I agree that no one will do a price-check when they are on death's doorstop, but there are many instances where doing a price check for medical procedures is possible.

Fair point :)

Re: Hospital creates bidding war by posting pricing online

#152

Post by riahi »

Bamafan wrote: post #137
lettergram wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I worked in a billing office for 5 years, there are literally thousands of codes for EACH insurance company, again EACH insurance company. The reason the cost of healthcare is so high is because medicare pays roughly 15% of a bill, others are somewhere between 20-50% of a bill depending. That is to say if the doctor charges you $40,000 you pay your 10% co-pay of $4,000 and the insurance then only pays maybe another $…

The reason the cost of healthcare is so high is because medicare pays roughly 15% of a bill, others are somewhere between 20-50% of a bill depending. That is to say if the doctor charges you $40,000 you pay your 10% co-pay of $4,000 and the insurance then only pays maybe another $8,000. Another reason is the supply of doctors is artificially restricted by the AMA.

The supply of doctors is not restricted by the AMA. The supply of doctors is determined by the number of residency spots available to new graduates; that number is entirely determined by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS). Thanks to the Balance Budget Act of 1997, Graduate Medical Education (GME) was dramatically slowed due to decreases in Medicare funding of residency positions. [1]

As long as we require physicians to be US trained and to have completed a US residency, the bottleneck will be GME funding. To fix that, the AMA or any other concerned citizen can lobby Congress for an increase.

[1]: http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=182532

Re: Hospital creates bidding war by posting pricing online

#153

Post by njharman »

sanderjd wrote: post #114
badclient wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, just so everyone knows, it's pretty easy to negotiate down your bill. The reason healthcare is so expensive is so many people don't pay it. If you are willing to pay say 40% of your bill it's already 25% better than medicare. This. My Dad is a surgeon and the stories I hear are incredible. Once he operated on a child whose insurance was out of network. So the insurance company writes the parents a check to give…

This is the part I'm always curious about in these discussions: how do people get away with not paying? Is it a debt that is often discharged in bankruptcy or is there some other mechanism by which the debt is erased?

Debt is not a crime in the U.S.A. Just don't pay it. Eventually collectors write it off as tax loss.

Re: Hospital creates bidding war by posting pricing online

#154

Post by kasey_junk »

javert wrote: post #140
kasey_junk wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

every. single. industry where efficiency and profit are the main concerns and externalities are captured accurately and true competition can exist. That is not always true. Off the top of my head the justice system and emergency service providers (think fire/hazmat etc) come to mind. Lets not let the bizarre state of the US medical industry act as some sort of straw man to support some ultra libertarian viewpoint.

> true competition can exist. True competition can always exist unless force is used against someone to stop it (in 99.9% of cases, that's done via government regulation). > the justice system The justice system isn't an industry, it's a proper function of government. > emergency service providers (think fire/hazmat etc) As someone who has been screwed over by government emergency service providers, I beg to differ.…

There are lots of reasons for competition to not exist in capitalist systems other than force. Things like high cost barriers to entry, monopolistic practices, or oligarchic systems all can lead to situations where competition will not bring down prices.

Most of the first world believes that health care is also a proper government function, because you disagree doesn't mean that the justice system is not an industry. Lots and lots of profit driven companies exist purely based on the justice system, just like lots and lots of profit driven companies exist to provide health care.

We've tried to have private emergency service providers. For most of the history of our continent basic services like fire fighting, property security & education were provided as free market enterprise. Early 19th century New York city has lots of examples of how very very bad the results from those practices can be.

As far as your empirical evidence for free market health services, I'd love to see it. By nearly every standard I've seen the best health care in the world is provided by governmental, or quasi-governmental heavily regulated single payer systems.

The fact that the US medical system is bad is neither an indictment of free market libertarian principles, nor leftist socialist ones, because the system we have currently is a mix of the worst aspects of all possible options. Like most other things, partisan rhetoric is neither correct nor helpful in sussing out the proper solution to complex problems.

Re: Hospital creates bidding war by posting pricing online

#156

Post by conexions »

easyfrag wrote: post #34

One thing to keep in mind is that there's more to good medical care than a fair price: Post-op infection rate - do all clinical employees regularly wash their hands before and after each patient encounter? Re-admission rate - does the institution or surgeon do enough cases of a particular procedure to be proficient? Error Rate - Are pre-op checklists ALWAYS used? Post-op care - Are supportive therapies like Physiothe…

Those are all important things...and they should be publish on the internet as well. The only way to bring prices in healthcare down is to allow the customers to be able to compare price and quality. When my wife was pregnant our number one priorty was to find a doctor with a low C-section rate and I was incredibly frustrated to find no public means of finding this out. If patients are given the tools to research price an quality, I believe it will have a huge impact on the healthcare system.

Re: Hospital creates bidding war by posting pricing online

#157

Post by tempestn »

clarkm wrote: post #41
ChuckMcM wrote: post #22

I really salute these guys for doing this. It's freakin' awesome. This I've added to my next letter to my representatives in Congress: "Dr. Smith said federal Medicare regulation would not allow for their online price menu. They have avoided government regulation and control in that area by choosing not to accept Medicaid or Medicare payments." I've suggested that one non-controversial way in which Healthcare could b…

If you're looking for some more information, you can see the pricing on their website here: http://www.surgerycenterok.com/pricing/ Reason also did a story and short video on the Surgery Center of Oklahoma last year that I think is worth watching: http://reason.com/reasontv/2012/11/15/the-obamacare-revolt-o... The center was started by Dr. Keith Smith, who is very much a free-market guy. Even if you don't agree with…

The great thing is, health care has been such a study in what can go wrong with free-market capitalism that it's nice to see a counter-example.

Re: Hospital creates bidding war by posting pricing online

#158

Post by caycep »

"hospital" may be a misnomer - these may be private facilities set up to do high-volume "day surgeries" that don't require ICU's or CCU's that tertiary care hospitals provide. They aren't expected to offer the full suite of hospital services, i.e. emergency, trauma, in-house pharmacy, etc.

Re: Hospital creates bidding war by posting pricing online

#159

Post by prostoalex »

Not a hospital, but I patronize this medical group partially because they have a list of cash prices posted online

http://www.caduceusmedicalgroup.com/cash-prices/cash-prices....

Even though I never needed it, having insurance through my employer, it's the transparency that I liked.

Re: Hospital creates bidding war by posting pricing online

#160

Post by mattmcknight »

tempestn wrote: post #157
clarkm wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're looking for some more information, you can see the pricing on their website here: http://www.surgerycenterok.com/pricing/ Reason also did a story and short video on the Surgery Center of Oklahoma last year that I think is worth watching: http://reason.com/reasontv/2012/11/15/the-obamacare-revolt-o... The center was started by Dr. Keith Smith, who is very much a free-market guy. Even if you don't agree with…

The great thing is, health care has been such a study in what can go wrong with free-market capitalism that it's nice to see a counter-example.

Free-market capitalism? It's highly regulated, subject to inconsistent taxation, and over 50% of care is bought by the government...
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