agracer said:
ABATTBQ11 said:
BusterAg said:
ABATTBQ11 said:
Seamaster said:
Medical care is the only financial transaction that we consent to without having any inking of what it's going to cost.
I can't believe we put up with it.
Imagine going to a restaurant or buying an appliance and not knowing the cost until they bill you. Sounds nuts? But that's what we do with healthcare.
The whole system is beyond broken.
"Hey, Mr. Builder, I want a house. How much will it cost?"
"I don't know. How big do you want it? What do you want it made of?"
"I can't tell you. Just give me a price and let's sign a contract."
*Dial Tone*
It's not broken. Doctors, ER's, and hospitals simply can't give you a price for something they know nothing about when you walk in the door the same way a builder can't give you a price for a home he knows nothing about. My son went to the pediatrician last year because he was sick and having trouble breathing. His oxygen was low and didn't come up enough with different steroid treatments, so he ended up in the hospital and staying overnight. Could they have quoted me a price for seeing him at the pediatrician's front desk? What are they supposed to do, eat everything after the $120 for the pediatrician visit or charge everyone $5k for every visit just in case they end up admitted? Medicine is simply filled with unknowns and often very short and hard timelines. There are certainly games played with billing and insurance, but the cash price afterwards can't be given to you upfront for something like an ER visit, and it's going to be way more than an urgent care or GP purely because you're paying for the existence and availability of the facility to treat almost anything.
If you go get an elective procedure, most of the time they're going to work with your insurance beforehand and give you a ballpark or exact price.
This is crap.
When you go to a restaurant, you don't ask for a price for dinner upfront before you order. You order, and then you pay for what you get, and the prices are provided prior to your order.
There are zero reasons why medicine can't be the same way. Sure, you don't know how much your stay is going to cost you when you go to the ER, but you will know how much you are going to get charged for every service you consume.
This is crap.
When you go to a restaurant, you don't ask for a price up front before you order because they're on the menu and you pick what you want. If you go the ER, you're not picking from a menu. If your wife is giving birth and so of a sudden needs a c-section, it's not like you get to say, "No, no. Put her labor on hold, were going down the street because their c-sections are cheaper, unless you guys want to price match."
This is crap. If I walk into an ER with chest pain you're going to start asking questions, probably hook me up to a monitor and order some tests. There is no reason whatsoever someone cannot tell me what those tests will cost. Yes, what happens after the tests may may be set in stone, but a lot of that up front costs should be known. And even after the tests you'll have a pretty good idea what is going on and know the next steps are going to be X, Y and maybe Z. Again, no reason someone can't tell me those X, Y, and Z costs or at least a good approximation.
and WTF does a CAT scan at the hospital cost 10x the amount as at a stand alone image center? There is no reason for that huge difference.
You are trying to tell a story without knowing the details nor how the details makes your story fiction.
One of the details you are missing in the ER is EMTALA and required Medical screening exams. ERs are required to fulfill minimum evaluations to rule out emergencies without discussion of costs. If you walk into the ER, doc is required to do an MSE. If you walk out, your insurance still gets billed. Doc and staff has spent time/charting/resources to evaluate you. 3K please.
Also, what cost are you asking for? Is it the uninsured cost? The medicare cost? The medicaid cost? The Oscar plan costs? The UNH cost? The BCBS cost? The other 100+ insurance carrier costs?
Ahhhh, you have BCBS? Do you want the BCBS gold plan cost? The blue plan costs? The medicare plan costs? or the other 20 variants?
Ahhh, you have the BCBS gold plan costs.... Do you want the high deductible costs? The high copay costs? The other 10 variations of the plan?
Ahhhh you have the BCBS gold plan with high deductible..... Do you have the 5K deductible, the $10K deductible, or the $20K deductible?
Ahhhh you have the BCBS gold plan with high deductible at 10K..... Do you have 10K left, do you have 5K left, do you have 1K left, or have you used up all your deductible?
Let me get back to you in 2 hrs to let you know what your out of pocket costs will be for this blood draw, EKG, and CXR......
Hey conscientious pt, you will need a CT scan and some meds. Let me run the CT scan, 5 meds you are getting, the monitoring, the tylenol, the other 20 charges. and give you a price for each.
10 hrs later we finally get prices for about 40 charges to you. The waiting room now have 50 people deep because now it took me 15 hrs to get you home and flip the room rather than 3 hrs.
Problem with these threads is everyone thinks they are neurosurgeons and can do brain surgery because they know a family member who had brain surgery. You know just enough to think you can do brain surgery but the complexity is more than you can imagine. Our current structure/law/practice of medicine/uncertainty of medicine makes giving you a firm number impossible.
