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How much health insurers pay for almost everything is about to go public

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Re: How much health insurers pay for almost everything is about to go public

#311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, it works for routine stuff, but don't try to pay cash for abdominal surgery. You will get a very terrible, high price. After all, it's agree to our low price or die of appendicitis.

Not really. Its a matter of knowing where to find the place that can treat you. For example, this surgery clinic will treat your appendicitis for less than the average patient's deductible + coinsurance. I'm including the flight + hotel stay in that estimate. https://surgerycenterok.com/pricing/appendectomy-laparoscopi... The problem is how you go about finding this information. Most ASC's and even independent doctor…

“OK Surgery” is not a name that inspires confidence!

Re: How much health insurers pay for almost everything is about to go public

#312
post #2

I'm one of the co-founders of Turquoise Health, mentioned in the article here. We've been downloading and parsing this data all day. It's a really big deal in the industry that the prices that insurance companies pay doctors are now being shared publicly. It will have all sorts of positive impacts over time, hopefully making rate negotiations more consistent and fair between different insurance plans. Right now, 10x…

My dentist dropped my insurer (Delta Dental) because they claim they did not cover things as reliably as they should. When I saw a comparison bill of what it would be in and out of network for a recent service it looked like the 60% increase in price was purely because my dentist billed more, which they then claimed is due to the discount The insurer provides.

None of this makes sense to me. How can I leverage this new data access to my advantage?

Re: How much health insurers pay for almost everything is about to go public

#313
post #2

I'm one of the co-founders of Turquoise Health, mentioned in the article here. We've been downloading and parsing this data all day. It's a really big deal in the industry that the prices that insurance companies pay doctors are now being shared publicly. It will have all sorts of positive impacts over time, hopefully making rate negotiations more consistent and fair between different insurance plans. Right now, 10x…

My dentist dropped my insurer (Delta Dental) because they claim they did not cover things as reliably as they should. When I saw a comparison bill of what it would be in and out of network for a recent service it looked like the 60% increase in price was purely because my dentist billed more, which they then claimed is due to the discount The insurer provides. None of this makes sense to me. How can I leverage this n…

> When I saw a comparison bill of what it would be in and out of network for a recent service it looked like the 60% increase in price was purely because my dentist billed more, which they then claimed is due to the discount The insurer provides.

Well, rebates kinda DO end up working like that. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uPa-RHVh97k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_4_WNFPnmO8

Re: How much health insurers pay for almost everything is about to go public

#314
post #2

I'm one of the co-founders of Turquoise Health, mentioned in the article here. We've been downloading and parsing this data all day. It's a really big deal in the industry that the prices that insurance companies pay doctors are now being shared publicly. It will have all sorts of positive impacts over time, hopefully making rate negotiations more consistent and fair between different insurance plans. Right now, 10x…

How well will their data be audited and enforced? For example if they charge one price and yet their public data purports another price? More so will they cut the drug prices internally and shift the difference onto an administration fee? That is one aspect I'm very mindful of.

Re: How much health insurers pay for almost everything is about to go public

#315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is provider-specific. Medical tourism exists, both internationally and within the USA. Some providers are happy to accept immediate cash and forego the pain of dealing with insurance company bureaucracy and delayed reimbursement.

Any country where it is different? For example, they play the exact same games in Thailand and would never give an estimate.

Some US providers, one referenced in a comment above, https://aapsonline.org/surgery-centers-with-cash-friendly-pr...

Web search for Thailand returned this 2020 price list, https://www.bumrungrad.com/en/blog-news/fixed-prices

Re: How much health insurers pay for almost everything is about to go public

#316
post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Insurance costs were increasing at a higher rate each year before the ACA was passed or went into effect.

The rate of growth didn’t go negative or to 0, it just slowed down.

Correct

Re: How much health insurers pay for almost everything is about to go public

#317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's reference-based pricing?

The sibling is right but in this case we'd probably do something like Medicare + 20%, which is actually close to what most insurers do for some of the codes already. It just removes the cost of negotiation, brokers, out of network, etc. and actually lets you know the cost up front for most appointments. We also need to get rid of service levels for most appointments. It is just used as an excuse to up charge by havin…

The whole premise of a doctor visit is you don’t know what is going on and you need someone to differentiate everything that’s happened to you to figure out if it’s gas pain or cancer. When you see a Doctor, they are trained for years more than any mid-level provider and they carry massive legal risks if they are wrong or negligent. When you see a PA or LPN they have far less training, and are judged by “nurses standard”, so when they miss your child’s cancer, or kill you by administering the wrong dose, you don’t have repercussions.

In reality, the legal costs in healthcare should be the next big trim on the cutting block - a single judgment for the $100 million against a provider somewhere in South Carolina makes insurers raise malpractice rates for all doctors everyone by huge percentages. Those costs put doctors out of business and all of a sudden you have far less providers in many rural areas and people die of preventative stuff. The stress of dealing with malpractice is so high (60% of all doctors are sued for almost entirely frivolous reasons, every single year nowadays) that doctors are now directing their kids to become nurses - higher guaranteed pay, you don’t lose your 20s to medical training, and no stress of career ending lawsuits.

If you go to a hospital for a longer illness and have to be taken care of by team of rotating health professionals, every lawsuit can name every single professional, whether they have anything to do with your damage or were just on the note for admitting you to the hospital. All of those providers then have to pay 100k to a lawyer to defend themselves, even though it’s obvious to a kid, they shouldn’t have to.

Re: How much health insurers pay for almost everything is about to go public

#318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Most healthcare providers are happy to accept cash payments from patients. You can sometimes even negotiate a discount. Actually, if you don't have insurance, you get the special cash price of $Maximum. /been there //tried that.

I have also been there and tried that, extensively. That's the opposite experience of what I encountered in paying by cash for more than a decade. Typically I'd pay around half price via cash for healthcare services (routine doctor visits, scans, et al.) versus what they charged if you had insurance. I never ran into a situation where they wouldn't negotiate steep discounts for paying by cash.

Sorry, low effort post on my part: This is silly, so now we are expected to negotiate and haggle medical costs like we do at a car dealership? No thank you. Rather we all pay the same price, and if we have insurance, charge the insurance more.

Re: How much health insurers pay for almost everything is about to go public

#319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Spouse of a third year resident here. My wife has volunteered at several primary care (i.e. generic doctor) clinics in Manhattan and nearby area (Queens, Astoria, Brooklyn and even in Boundbrook, NJ). These are all owned by the doctors. She worked in all kinds of operations of a clinic from billing, sending prescription, taking patient history, etc. Back-of-the-napkin calculation based on my wife's experience -- if y…

> Most of these doctors would encourage the staff/volunteers who do the billing to put as many relevant billing codes as possible in the system Is there any way to fight back against this? I've personally experienced getting a bill after a routine office visit with tons of charges I didn't recognize and procedures they absolutely did not perform. In some cases, it equates to $0 after my insurance pays, but in others…

The insurance company probably has a hotline you can call to report medical billing fraud.

Re: How much health insurers pay for almost everything is about to go public

#320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They have low profit margins, but they massively overpay for the care, meaning that it's still incredibly inefficient.

How are you determining they massively overpay for the care?

By comparing to the prices paid for comparable care in other countries. And also by comparing what US hospitals charge insurers vs what US hospitals charge cash payers.
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