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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

#191

Post by bradleyjg »

mbreese wrote: post #186
Bamafan wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wasn't referring to residency spots at accredited medical schools. I was referring to medical school accreditation itself.

Medical schools are free to set their own limits on the number of students they admit. But they aren't going to admit more students than they predict can find a residency spot. It would look bad to have a high percentage of your students not be able to find a residency. The real reason why there are fewer doctors is that it simply doesn't make any economic sense to be a doctor anymore. You need too much school, at to…

Sheer and utter nonsense. First there are a huge number of students who wish to go to medical school and don't get in. There's no shortage of applicants at all. Second the incredibly high compensation for speciality doctors quickly overcomes both opportunity cost and tuition costs as compared to almost any other profession.

I encourage you to run the numbers. You will find that $250k/year catches up very quickly to $100k/year even with a 10 year head start and $300,000 in extra debt.

Re: Hospital creates bidding war by posting pricing online

#192

Post by lifeisstillgood »

newbie12 wrote: post #150
toomuchtodo wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So we replace doctors with software. Will it be perfect? Not at first. But eventually...

The same self-interested political forces that keep the number of doctors low are also fighting against automation.

Oh that's just utter nonsense.

Automation (especially in diagnosis) is welcomed and supported by the medical profession.

Some vague idea of walking up to a kiosk and the computer telling you your condition and dispensing pills is opposed by everyone apart from the CEOs of kiosk makers

Re: Hospital creates bidding war by posting pricing online

#194

Post by LogicX »

jrmg wrote: post #182
EvanAnderson wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fellow high deductible plan-holder here. Have you run into the circumstance yet where a provider is under an exclusive contract w/ your insurer and, once the provider finds out who your insurer is, is obligated to refuse to allow you to pay cash? I've had this happen 3 times in the last year and it's driving me mad. The providers were unwilling to talk to me unless I divulged my insurer, and when I did they were then…

Why do you want to pay cash? Wouldn't it be better to pay via your insurance company to 'use up' some of the deductible?

That only works if you anticipate regular medical needs that will 'save' you money by tapping into insurance.

Otherwise if you never anticipate hitting your deductible for the year, it makes more sense to pay a discounted cash rate out of pocket, and maintain the insurance only for a catastrophe situation where you far exceed your annual deductible: preventing yourself being stuck with a $100k hospital bill.

Re: Hospital creates bidding war by posting pricing online

#195

Post by sneak »

wavefunction wrote: post #172
mattmcknight wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Wow, I wonder why that is? It's almost as if tempestn is referring to a time before the situation we currently find ourselves in that brought about the high level of regulation, inconsistent taxation, and 50% of care being provided via government purchasing. It's almost as if somewhere in the middle between over-regulation and no regulation at all might be prudent...

Are you suggesting that it was worse at some point in the past?

Re: Hospital creates bidding war by posting pricing online

#196

Post by estebank »

Daniel_Newby wrote: post #167
redler wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's also important to consider that Lasik and cosmetic surgeries are elective procedures characterized by elastic demand. Having a trauma surgeon remove a ruptured spleen, or being treated for a heart attack, are situations where demand is completely inelastic. One might shop around for the best way to spend a spare $10,000 for an eye lift, but who can be expected to shop for an economically satisfying deal while in…

> ... being treated for a heart attack, are situations where demand is completely inelastic. Not true. Even in a sprawling place like Oklahoma City, most of the middle class lives within safe transport distance of several hospitals. It would be perfectly rational for them to tell the ambulance crew to drive another five minutes to save $25,000. Most emergencies have plenty of time for price shopping.

>> ... being treated for a heart attack, are situations where demand is completely inelastic.

> (...) It would be perfectly rational for them to tell the ambulance crew to drive another five minutes to save $25,000.

I wouldn't want to be in your care. If you're having a heart attack you want to get into a hospital ASAP. And that's coming from somebody that took a taxi to the hospital after being stabbed in the chest.

Re: Hospital creates bidding war by posting pricing online

#197

Post by drakeandrews »

jrmg wrote: post #182
EvanAnderson wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fellow high deductible plan-holder here. Have you run into the circumstance yet where a provider is under an exclusive contract w/ your insurer and, once the provider finds out who your insurer is, is obligated to refuse to allow you to pay cash? I've had this happen 3 times in the last year and it's driving me mad. The providers were unwilling to talk to me unless I divulged my insurer, and when I did they were then…

Why do you want to pay cash? Wouldn't it be better to pay via your insurance company to 'use up' some of the deductible?

As far as I am aware, most deductibles are per-incident. If you have a $5k (figure pulled from arse) deductible and paid $1200 last month, $2300 last week and have a bill for $2000 today on three visits for three separate things (with three separate bills), you still owe $2000 because that bill is under the deductible.

Re: Hospital creates bidding war by posting pricing online

#198

Post by 11Blade »

johndevor wrote: post #131
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…

From their website: Wherever you decide to have your surgery, you should inquire about the rate of infection in their facility. Our rate of infection for 2006 was 0.3%, for 2007 was 0.2%, for 2008 was 0.04% and for 2009 and 2010 was .001%. These percentages are astoundingly low compared with an estimated national average of 2.6 % per year.

It is misleading. It is a surgery center. They do not do complicated abdominal surgeries that require post-op hospitalization.

If you concentrate of endoscopy, elective orthopedic surgeries, and outpatient surgery, the infection rates will be much lower.

compare that to colon and pancreatic surgery or complicated thoracic/lung/heart surgery.

I give them credit though for cutting their infection rate from 0.3% to 0.001%

11Blade (yes. a scalpel)

Re: Hospital creates bidding war by posting pricing online

#199

Post by draz »

maxerickson wrote: post #134
draz wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I generally agree with your sentiment. However, here's something to consider - medical practices mostly over-charge to avoid insurance fraud. Wait, what?? Yes, here's how it works: if they were to ask you, "what insurance do you have" and then charge you differently (i.e. one insurance pays them better than the other, so they'd charge more), they'd be committing a crime. So, instead, they charge EVERYONE a crazy amou…

Do they actually negotiate deals with insurance companies where they lose money on some procedures? If they don't, then the problem is that they want the revenue from the higher paying insurance, not worries over fraud.

Yes, they want more money from higher paying insurance. But if they were to officially have a menu of prices for different entities (self pay, insurance A, insurance B, etc), that'd be against the law. So they come up a "catch all" number, and they grab as much as they can get from each entity.
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