As Hospital Prices Soar, a Single Stitch Tops $500

[Newsjock]

Source: New York Times

... In a medical system notorious for opaque finances and inflated bills, nothing is more convoluted than hospital pricing, economists say. Hospital charges represent about a third of the $2.7 trillion annual United States health care bill, the biggest single segment, according to government statistics, and are the largest driver of medical inflation, a new study in The Journal of the American Medical Association found.

A day spent as an inpatient at an American hospital costs on average more than $4,000, five times the charge in many other developed countries, according to the International Federation of Health Plans, a global network of health insurance industries. The most expensive hospitals charge more than $12,500 a day. And at many of them, including California Pacific Medical Center, emergency rooms are profit centers. That is why one of the simplest and oldest medical procedures — closing a wound with a needle and thread — typically leads to bills of at least $1,500 and often much more.

... Rising costs of drugs, medical equipment and other services, and fees from layers of middlemen, play a significant role in escalating hospital bills, of course. But just as important is that mergers and consolidation have resulted in a couple of hospital chains — like Partners in Boston, or Banner in Phoenix — dominating many parts of the country, allowing them to command high prices from insurers and employers.

... In other countries, the price of a day in the hospital often includes many basic services. Not here. The “chargemaster,” the price list created by each hospital, typically has more than ten thousand entries, and almost nothing — even an aspirin, a bag of IV fluid, or a visit from a physical therapist to help a patient get out of bed — is free. Those lists are usually secret, but California requires them to be filed with health regulators and disclosed.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/03/health/as-hospital-costs-soar-single-stitch-tops-500.html?hp

[Skittles]

1. it is legalized theft

[NYC_SKP]

2. That, and the indirect assignation of costs including liability insurance.

Every paid for stitch has to also pay for lawyers fees and insurance fees and fees for the uninsured who have to somehow be covered by that same facility or provider.

Plus, all the players at the top have a boat or vacation payment to make.

So, the ACA will help this, but a stitch will still be way overpriced.

Still, we're on the right track.

PS, I'll take stitches out for free.

Hell, I'll even put them in for fee if you smile at me!

[ccsar]

3. I usually just use a bit of gauze and duct tape.

[Brigid]

4. Pfft. That's nothing.

Earlier today I heard a story about a nineteenth-century mountain man who got his right ear and half his face torn off by a grizzly bear. Friends sewed him back together and he eventually died a rich man (trapping beaver).

[Mz Pip]

5. I broke my wrist in May

For some reason I got a copy of the charges. It was about $8,000. No surgery, just X-rays and getting the cast put on. I was in the hospital for 2 hours.

I didn't have to pay it but I can see how the bill for something as common as a broken bone can really set someone back who doesn't have insurance. Scary.

[liberal_at_heart]

6. These soaring prices are financially ruining people. Even if you have insurance, when you have to

pay 20% of a bill that may be 10's of thousands of dollars is devastating. We have to have a system that is not based on profit.

[Vashta Nerada]

7. The ACA was a good start, but we need something more.

The insurance industry is getting way out of control.

[Niceguy1]

8. a single stitch cost the same as a dozen

or more depending how long the thread is.the cost is per package..

[msongs]

9. all these fees should be posted on the internet by every care provider nt

[Laelth]

10. k&r for exposure. n/t

-Laelth

[Earth_First]

11. I've closed wounds with Steri-Strips in the past...

Wounds that I knew needed stitches, but because of the outrageous cost to make an emergency room visit, I had to forgo.

[callous taoboy]

12. Let me tell you about my recent surgery.

Had a cactus needle embedded in my ankle. Went to the doctor, he said surgery was the only way to get it out, especially since it was so deep and getting swollen. His billing office told me the whole thing would cost about $2,300, but that all I would probably pay was $500 under my Blue Cross plan. I asked her straight up, "So this whole procedure will cost me only $500?" "Yes, approxiamately," she said. I wrote the check for $500. She was purposefully being misleading. Day of the surgery the people over in the hospital said, no, the $500 covered the office visit and stitches removal later. I would still owe the hospital in the neighborhood of $1,200. I told the hospital billing person that I had been told over in the doctopr's office that this would only cost me $500. Her response: I know, they do that sometimes over there. I ask, "Why do they do that?" I don't know. I wish they wouldn't do that. So I paid $1,700 for a 30 minute operation to removal an inch long cactus needle from my ankle.

[JNelson6563]

13. That's why I fix as many things as I can.

It's positively highway robbery the way they charge you for anything medical. I have learned as much as I can and do what I can for my own ailments and my kids (young adults). We avoid doctors with their inflated prices (to match inflated egos) whenever humanely possible.

Julie--no fan of doctors

[Yo_Mama]

14. Until we address our ridiculous costs

health care reform will remain very difficult, as will covering the uninsured.

But the "costs" cited are not the actual costs - for those you have to figure what insurance pays of the costs.