As Hospital Prices Soar, a Single Stitch Tops $500

[Hiphoplives4eva]

Best healthcare in the world isn't free friends...

 

[DEAD7]

what is your definition of government in a corporatist state?

Now we are labeling things correctly.


But that question has nothing to do with the topic, or my post. I was simply pointing out that healthcare(in America) is in no way, shape, or form representative of a free market. As has been suggested more then once in this thread.

 

[Trip]

But that question has nothing to do with the topic, or my post. I was simply pointing out that healthcare(in America) is in no way, shape, or form representative of a free market.

its the opposite actually

 

[DEAD7]

its the opposite actually

 

[Trip]

I mean healthcare in this country is the opposite of the free market.

Arch Roberts Jr., 56, a former government employee, was charged more than $2,000 for three stitches after being bitten by a dog. At Mercy Hospital in Port Huron,

You guys do know when Doctors see you're on the cadillac insurance plan- they can bill whatever they want....causing other folk's costs to go up?

 

[tmonster]

Now we are labeling things correctly.

But that question has nothing to do with the topic, or my post. I was simply pointing out that healthcare(in America) is in no way, shape, or form representative of a free market. As has been suggested more then once in this thread.

at this point in time, that's just semantics
since the language has been coopted by the corporate mafia state
if you wish we can refer to the true free market as "free market" and the current status quo as "free marketism", for the purposes of this conversation

 

[88m3]

bump

 

[Mr. Somebody]

Wow, when i got my head buss and was leakin soakin wet, in blood, it didnt cost that much to close the hole in my forehead. Wow, its so demonic, friends.

 

[DonFrancisco]

By ELISABETH ROSENTHAL
December 2, 2013
SAN FRANCISCO — With blood oozing from deep lacerations, the two patients arrived at California Pacific Medical Center’s tidy emergency room. Deepika Singh, 26, had gashed her knee at a backyard barbecue. Orla Roche, a rambunctious toddler on vacation with her family, had tumbled from a couch, splitting open her forehead on a table.

On a quiet Saturday in May, nurses in blue scrubs quickly ushered the two patients into treatment rooms. The wounds were cleaned, numbed and mended in under an hour. “It was great — they had good DVDs, the staff couldn’t have been nicer,” said Emer Duffy, Orla’s mother.

I invite you to share your experiences by responding to the questions that will appear as you read this article. Your comments will inspire and inform follow-up articles on the cost of hospital care, to be published later this week.
— Elisabeth Rosenthal, Reporter
Then the bills arrived. Ms. Singh’s three stitches cost $2,229.11. Orla’s forehead was sealed with a dab of skin glue for $1,696. “When I first saw the charge, I said, ‘What could possibly have cost that much?’ ” recalled Ms. Singh. “They billed for everything, every pill.”

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.

At Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City, Daniel Diaz, 29, a public relations executive, was billed $3,355.96 for five stitches on his finger after cutting himself while peeling an avocado. At a hospital in Jacksonville, Fla., Arch Roberts Jr., 56, a former government employee, was charged more than $2,000 for three stitches after being bitten by a dog. At Mercy Hospital in Port Huron, Mich., Chelsea Manning, 22, a student, received bills for close to $3,000 for six stitches after she tripped running up a path. Insurers and patients negotiated lower prices, but those charges were a starting point.

Chelsea Manning in St. Clair, Mich., in November. She tripped and fell in the driveway of her home, and needed six stitches for which she was billed close to $3,000.Joshua Lott for The New York Times

The main reason for high hospital costs in the United States, economists say, is fiscal, not medical: Hospitals are the most powerful players in a health care system that has little or no price regulation in the private market.

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.

Sutter Health, California Pacific Medical Center’s parent company, operates more than two dozen community hospitals in Northern California, almost all in middle-class or high-income neighborhoods. Its clout has helped California Pacific Medical Center, the state’s largest private nonprofit hospital, also earn the highest net income in California. Prices for many of the procedures at the San Francisco hospital are among the top 20 percent in the country, according to a New York Times analysis of data released by the federal government.

“Sutter is a leader — a pioneer — in figuring out how to amass market power to raise prices and decrease competition,” said Glenn Melnick, a professor of health economics at the University of Southern California. “How do hospitals set prices? They set prices to maximize revenue, and they raise prices as much as they can — all the research supports that.”

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.

Inflated Prices

California Pacific Medical Center has very high price markups for routine supplies and services.

California Pacific

Market price

Tylenol with codeine pill

$36.78

$0.50

IV fluid bag

$137

Under $1

Neck brace

$154

$19.99

Echocardiogram

$1,791 Hospital fee only

$358 Includes doctor

Knee arthroscopy

$14,110

$2,037

Sources: California Pacific Medical Center chargemaster; Health Care Blue Book; CVS in San Francisco

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/03/h...smid=fb-nytimes&WT.z_sma=HL_AHP_20131203&_r=0

Long article, check it out.

Overhead cost, recovery cost, process waste, huge H.R. cost, and lost efficiency cost due to decentralize is what drive up healthcare year after year. There is a reason why urgent care centers that use the same equipment, HR staff, and treatment, only costs a fraction compared to a visit to an ER for the same exact thing. Bundling services together alone save patients money. Hospitals contract out doctors, labs, and ambulatory care, this leads to inefficiency and waste. Inefficiency and waste eventually inflates cost and create chaos. Hence part of the reason our quality of care is sh**ty compared to other industrialized countries.

 

[DonFrancisco]

Best healthcare in the world isn't free friends...

No it is racked with inefficiencies and some of the highest mortality rates among industrialize world.

Have fragment system of care, brehs.

 

[DEAD7]

No it is racked with inefficiencies and some of the highest mortality rates among industrialize world.

Have fragment system of care, brehs.

It also develops over 80% of the worlds life saving medication I guess that doesnt count for much though...

 

[DonFrancisco]

It also develops over 80% of the worlds life saving medication I guess that doesnt count for much though...

 

[DEAD7]

Wait, you're saying that other nations, exempt from our patent laws, that use drugs developed here in the U.S. without having to pay any research and development cost, spend less???


Sounds about right.

my question is, what does that mean? When people say we spend more? what exactly does that mean? and why does it matter? seriously...

 

[Hiphoplives4eva]

It also develops over 80% of the worlds life saving medication I guess that doesnt count for much though...

Of course. Because in the liberal world view the only people allowed to earn a profit are celebrities.

 

[the next guy]

Of course. Because in the liberal world view the only people allowed to earn a profit are celebrities.

And of course in conservative world hating on celebrities success is some how allowed...