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The ER charged him $6,589.77 for 6 stitches, cost that led his wife to avoid ER

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Re: The ER charged him $6,589.77 for 6 stitches, cost that led his wife to avoid ER

#81

Post by hogFeast »

Lifelarper wrote: post #50
throwaway09223 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My understanding is that the ER system is especially expensive because paying customers are subsidizing non-paying customers (homeless) who use the ER as primary care. That said, I don't think this excludes the possibility that the insurance companies and the hospitals are also not telling the full truth.

I find it hard to believe the small non-paying contingent is unique to the US or even a significant % of daily patients, plenty of other countries have homeless who end up in ED's. America somehow spends far more than any other country on healthcare and yet patients still have some of the highest out of pocket costs even when they have expensive private insurance schemes, something is clearly broken to anyone looking…

The out of pocket costs are high here because of an $8k deductible, it is a choice.

Re: The ER charged him $6,589.77 for 6 stitches, cost that led his wife to avoid ER

#83

Post by wombatmobile »

knubie wrote: post #65
refurb wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The plastic surgery and vision correction industries work pretty well in the US. You see price competition and patients have the ability to shop around and make choices that are important to them (references from other patients, doctor personality, etc). Now contrast that with going to a hospital for a procedure where you have time to shop around. Can you get a price? No. Can you easily get appointments with doctors…

Really any healthcare procedure that is not typically covered by insurance has seen costs go down over time. Things like lasik eye surgery, or orthodontics are great examples in addition to the ones you've already mention. The service and technology gets better while the price continues to go down.

> The service and technology gets better while the price continues to go down.

What did you think the farmer who was charged $6,589.77 for 6 stitches might have to say about that proposition?

Re: The ER charged him $6,589.77 for 6 stitches, cost that led his wife to avoid ER

#84

Post by Broken_Hippo »

nyamada wrote: post #18

My daughter here in France had a bike accident two months ago which requires 14 stitches in her foot. We received 3 follow-up visits from nurses to clean and redress her wounds -- We pay about 100€ a month for supplemental private insurance on top of the public health insurance here -- Total cost for us? about 40€. We would have had to pay about 100€ more for the nurses' visits, but the mutuelle covered it. These are…

These are some of the reasons why my wife and I moved from the US to France -- she's French, I'm American; but I can't imagine returning to the nightmare complexity of billings and profiteering that the US system has become...

I'm American and live in Norway. I feel the same. My out of pocket here is around $300, after which a lot of things simply become free. I don't have to consider whether or not I can afford to take care of something, and I have trouble explaining how much lower my stress levels are because of it.

My taxes aren't higher than in the US: IN fact, they might be lower than taxes plus insurance premiums - and that doesn't even touch on the deductibles.

Re: The ER charged him $6,589.77 for 6 stitches, cost that led his wife to avoid ER

#85

Post by willcipriano »

wombatmobile wrote: post #83
knubie wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really any healthcare procedure that is not typically covered by insurance has seen costs go down over time. Things like lasik eye surgery, or orthodontics are great examples in addition to the ones you've already mention. The service and technology gets better while the price continues to go down.

> The service and technology gets better while the price continues to go down. What did you think the farmer who was charged $6,589.77 for 6 stitches might have to say about that proposition?

"I wish stitches were done on a fee for service model like shooting lasers into people's eyes is."

Re: The ER charged him $6,589.77 for 6 stitches, cost that led his wife to avoid ER

#86

Post by afranchuk »

Anecdata: I just had a very mild infection a month ago, but it went to my heart so I went to the ER (thinking they'd give me antibiotics and send me on my way). They wanted to monitor me for 2 days so admitted me. I know I have the right to refuse (and very nearly did), but wanted to make sure my heart was all right. Long story short, they gave me nothing more than aspirin for that stint, did an echo and an EKG, and the billed amount is $130k. Completely ridiculous. I don't care if that's not the amount you pay, that's not right. The baby aspirin were $10 each!! Meanwhile they sent me home with an aspirin prescription for 120 (adult) pills that was about $5.

Re: The ER charged him $6,589.77 for 6 stitches, cost that led his wife to avoid ER

#87

Post by atdrummond »

gitfan86 wrote: post #57
addicted wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one is lying. The system is filled with massive inefficiencies. 1) Insurance companies don’t pay sticker prices. They pay negotiated rates. At the same time, hospitals have to pick up a lot of ER costs that are never covered. They might be making money but reasonable amounts at best (also that’s probably not true either considering how many hospitals are shutting down in the US). 2) The negotiated rates insurance…

Another big inefficiency is the margin of error allowed due to malpractice lawsuits. If a patient is at a 1 in a 10,000 risk for a problem, the Doctor will order a test to rule that problem out. Because if the Doctor doesn't order the test and the person ends up having the problem, the Doctor could be sued for malpractice. In other countries the Doctor would say this is very unlikely so I'm not going to run the test.

I don’t buy this. If this were true, Texas would have much better health outcomes than most other states, as med mal payments are capped and basically nonexistent relative to other states given the low cap/incentive for lawyers to pursue.

Instead of any kind of dramatic increase in patient results, this system instead protected truly terrible doctors like the murderer Dr. Christopher Duntsch.

Re: The ER charged him $6,589.77 for 6 stitches, cost that led his wife to avoid ER

#88

Post by causi »

chongli wrote: post #66
Lifelarper wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it hard to believe the small non-paying contingent is unique to the US or even a significant % of daily patients, plenty of other countries have homeless who end up in ED's. America somehow spends far more than any other country on healthcare and yet patients still have some of the highest out of pocket costs even when they have expensive private insurance schemes, something is clearly broken to anyone looking…

The US's non-paying contingent doesn't need to be any different from any other countries in order to cause the problem. The issue is that the uninsured subsidize the non-payers alone. This is radically different from countries with universal health care where the costs are spread among the entire tax-paying population. As for why the US spends more than any other country: it's due to an overabundance of caution among…

Do you have numbers for that? Even the comfortably insured in the US have to pay a fee when they visit a doctor, typically around $35 for GP and $100 or more for a specialist.

Re: The ER charged him $6,589.77 for 6 stitches, cost that led his wife to avoid ER

#89

Post by maxerickson »

chongli wrote: post #66
Lifelarper wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it hard to believe the small non-paying contingent is unique to the US or even a significant % of daily patients, plenty of other countries have homeless who end up in ED's. America somehow spends far more than any other country on healthcare and yet patients still have some of the highest out of pocket costs even when they have expensive private insurance schemes, something is clearly broken to anyone looking…

The US's non-paying contingent doesn't need to be any different from any other countries in order to cause the problem. The issue is that the uninsured subsidize the non-payers alone. This is radically different from countries with universal health care where the costs are spread among the entire tax-paying population. As for why the US spends more than any other country: it's due to an overabundance of caution among…

Imaging is used as a revenue center. Many states restrict CT and MRI machines based on the broken thought process that restricting capital spending will lead to lower overall prices. Of course in reality you also restrict investment and competition.

Re: The ER charged him $6,589.77 for 6 stitches, cost that led his wife to avoid ER

#90

Post by rsj_hn »

hogFeast wrote: post #81
Lifelarper wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it hard to believe the small non-paying contingent is unique to the US or even a significant % of daily patients, plenty of other countries have homeless who end up in ED's. America somehow spends far more than any other country on healthcare and yet patients still have some of the highest out of pocket costs even when they have expensive private insurance schemes, something is clearly broken to anyone looking…

The out of pocket costs are high here because of an $8k deductible, it is a choice.

The issue is why it costs $6.5K to get the stitches rather than who pays for it.

I mean, it's clear that it's not sustainable to have a healthcare system in which stitches cost this much. Things are not made any better or less outrageous if these costs are transferred to someone else or if they are paid out of pocket.

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