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Hospitals lift curtain on prices, reveals giant swings for hips, knees and more

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Re: Hospitals lift curtain on prices, reveals giant swings for hips, knees and more

#221

Post by ryanbrunner »

narrator wrote: post #84

Kaiser is the only non-broken part of the U.S healthcare system. They have never sent me a bill for a surprise out of network anything. Out of network doctors don't work there. All doctors are on salary. You get one bill from one company. No wonder they have been growing like crazy in California.

From the perspective of most of the world, having to limit yourselves to medical care that's provided by a particular company seems very broken. (unless I'm misunderstanding how Kaiser works).

I can just go to whatever walk-in clinic, urgent care provider or emergency room I need, depending on the severity and get treatment (I do try to go to my GP if possible, but I have many options if that's not practical for some reason).

Re: Hospitals lift curtain on prices, reveals giant swings for hips, knees and more

#222

Post by LocalH »

primitivesuave wrote: post #114

I'm the technical cofounder of a mid-sized healthcare startup, and when I start explaining hospital administration to people, I start with this - every person working in your hospital or clinic has no incentive whatsoever for you to emerge healthier. The only goal is to maximize the ratio between the amount your insurance is willing to pay, and the amount of care that is provided. In the case of joint replacement, ea…

It's almost like certain things should be exempt from the "profit first" mentality that is pervasive in capitalism.

Re: Hospitals lift curtain on prices, reveals giant swings for hips, knees and more

#223

Post by ryanbrunner »

joshspankit wrote: post #95
tornato7 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's awful. I hit my head in Thailand and went to the hospital, excellent experience I was in and out in 2 hours, got CT scanned and fully examined by a specialist, then left with a USB drive of my brain scans all for $180 out of pocket.

That’s awesome. Up here in Canada I have not gotten a bill yet (including when my daughter had to get brain scans), but one thing is it’s very hard to get the actual scans. I had to no joke steal my own chest xrays to get a copy.

Some providers are getting better at this. The hospital I visit has an online system that gives you tons of details on your results (to be fair, I don't think you see actual scans, but you do see all the notes and observations made on them which are clearly intended to be communicated between doctors and other care providers primarily).

Re: Hospitals lift curtain on prices, reveals giant swings for hips, knees and more

#224

Post by aantix »

hippira wrote: post #195
aantix wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Total cost zero”. The cost is never zero. Doctors, nurses, don’t work for free. Infrastructure isn’t maintained without money. It comes from somewhere.

Obviously he and his mother has already paid for in taxes, zero cost here is in the sense that the cost is not going to eat into their current savings. While in the US you paid taxes and can still potentially go bankrupt if you have major diseases.

But their current savings is lower because of their higher taxes.

Re: Hospitals lift curtain on prices, reveals giant swings for hips, knees and more

#225

Post by aantix »

heavyset_go wrote: post #179
aantix wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Total cost zero”. The cost is never zero. Doctors, nurses, don’t work for free. Infrastructure isn’t maintained without money. It comes from somewhere.

Nobody is under the impression that there aren't costs to care, so your response feels like you're addressing a strawman argument and isn't really insightful.

>Nobody is under the impression that there aren't costs to care

Someone is. "Total cost zero"

It's dishonest.

Re: Hospitals lift curtain on prices, reveals giant swings for hips, knees and more

#226

Post by joshspankit »

throw123123123 wrote: post #144
joshspankit wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, you’re right. Capitalism makes this a really difficult problem, even if we’re just doing hypothetical scenarios.

It's the same problem in non-capitalist systems that decide this by selecting what is covered or not.

Maybe capitalism is too specific here.

I mean that any system that has money or power as it’s underlying motivation probably cannot reach the kind of level that is possible since there will be people who are gaming and manipulating it to take extra for themselves.

My actual point is that we (human beings) have the technology, the knowledge, and the capacity for compassion required to live beautifully vibrant lives free of most of the health problems that we see in our societies. And we can have all that when we get out of our own way.

Re: Hospitals lift curtain on prices, reveals giant swings for hips, knees and more

#227

Post by rscho »

zo1 wrote: post #207
rscho wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my book, the problems begin as soon as the healthcare system is required to be lucrative. And don't tell me not-for-profit hospitals are not lucrative. It would be even worse without regulations. Care providers would illegally organize into cartels (which is of course already happening) and going to see the doc would then really just be like bringing your car to the garage, with all the 'niceties' that go with tha…

I've seen first hand the opposite in my country, where free market private health care is working almost near perfection. All it takes is minimal regulation and then watching the healthy patient incentives aligning with the profit motive without government meddling. And I've been watching in real time as the government is actively blocking and preventing this same functioning private healthcare system from acquiring…

So you're telling me that your private sector wants to vaccinate everyone for free? Sure, yeah! So, call me Red but I feel something between "free for everyone" and "private sector" doesn't align...

Re: Hospitals lift curtain on prices, reveals giant swings for hips, knees and more

#229

Post by nunie123 »

bane wrote: post #125

The U.S. healthcare system cannot be fixed. Period. Full-stop. The only solution is to nuke it from orbit, pave it over, and start again. It's very easy to point the finger at the conservative party as the one who's screwed it all up, but the other parties are not really putting forward models for successful healthcare systems. If one were to sit down and try to create the most absurd approach to healthcare that guar…

> I can't believe that some startup hasn't glassdoored billing practices yet by patients simply uploading screenshots of their bills when they get them.

I believe this is what Sidecar Health is working on: https://sidecarhealthinsurance.com

Re: Hospitals lift curtain on prices, reveals giant swings for hips, knees and more

#230

Post by tomrod »

banana_giraffe wrote: post #59
tomrod wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Always ask for the billing and procedure codes, also known as DGN, ICD10, and CPT/HPCPS Medical transcribing has a high error rate.

Fair point. In this case, though, the error was a transcription error in the birthdate. That caused a mess.

How rough! Sorry man.
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