No wonder we are going broke..

[mechanicx]

..With the way healthcare costs. My mom was sick awhile go throwing up and pain in the abdomen. Anyway, she went to the ER on that Sunday then was admitted for more testing and observation. While in the hospital the next day or two basically they gave her a CT scan and MRI and said she needed a procedure to clear the duct from her liver. She started feeling better by then, declined to have the procedure and asked to be discharged. They kept her 5 days total.

The bill to Medicare is for $17,000! It's like they are billing for the procedure that she elected to not do and then some. Is it any wonder this country is going broke and health insurance is so expensive?

 

[unixguru]

Hospital stay varies between 2-3k a day depending on the unit you're admitted to. Some hospitals can be as cheap as $1k/day, while majority will be around $2k. Most likely 10-15k were for the hospital stay and 2-5k for the MRI, and the rest is for the other procedures. From what I've heard MRI and CT scans are very expensive, but don't know actual numbers.

 

[Johnny]

She got off cheap. Back in May I had a CT scan and a MRI and was only in the hospital for a day and a half. Total cost, $19,200.00

Had minor kidney surgery in July, three days in the hospital, $24,800.00

I am having a saliva gland removed on November 29th and can't wait to see what that cost.

 

[Shuttler]

Procedure itself is not as shockingly expensive. 5 days in the hospital are.
Between me and my wife we went through 5 immigrations: Australia, Switzerland, France, Germany. I will take US medical care in a heartbeat over any of those. And those are good. That is: the US medical care of my pre-Obamacare experience.
You take many things for granted.

 

[oilboy123]

Wow that's scary.........

 

[unixguru]

But to add to your point - yes, healthcare is EXTREMELY expensive in this country. Is it good - yes, is it better than european countries - probably no, is it more expensive than other in countries in europe or canada - yes, probably many times so. You have to take into consideration that most insurance companies in this country are for profit companies and no different from any other major corp. Goal of any for-profit company is to make money for the shareholders and to charge as much as possible for their product or service.

I believe if your mom was not on Medicare, they would charge he even more. Medicare has certain strict caps on procedures and costs.

 

[Cutehumor]

I was in the hospital for 24 days last September when I was coughing up blood. I had three surgeries in one week. I had internal bleeding due to a lung mass and 60% of my right lung was removed. several blood transfusions, three chest tubes, ballon placed in my lung, two days of radiation, arterial line, swan ganz line, vascular catheter, three NGT tubes, Foley catheter, 12 days on a ventilator, pneumonia in both lungs, pleural lung effusion, and a supernatural experience. My health insurance company was billed over $700k bucks. wowsers, what if I worked part time and was a poor college student in my early 20's ten years ago. Luckily, I checked out who was the in network doctors and in network hospital before I went for medical treatment. The medical community would have gone after me for the difference of what my insurance didn't pay if I went to an out of network doctors/hospital. right now, I'm out of my yearly out of pocket maximum of 4800 bucks. who says we don't need health care reform?

P.S I'm 33 years old and have been healthy all of my life before the above incident.

 

[mechanicx]

The cost are just ridiculous. The bill is itemized but doesn't make much sense. There is a $7,000 charge for "surgery" but she did not have the surgery. $300, $400 etc for "occupational therapy" and physical therapy. This I guess was walking her down the hall a couple times. Basically very little was actually done if it was even done but is billed at an astronomical rate.

I don't have that high of opinion of healthcare besides the costs. I've had a few ailments at times and not once has a Dr. been able to diagnosis the problem, effectively treat it or cure it. I just had to wait till the body healed itself. Most of what they do is hand you a drug that has side effects worse than the symptoms it is suppose to relieve.

M mom was prescibed Avandia for her diabetes a few years ago and I told her not to take it. Good thing I did as there may have been 100,000 heart attacks cuased by that drug. Just the other day a Dr prescribed her another diabetic drug that has questionable safety for the heart. He got nasty to me when I asked about using insulin.

My Dad has end-stage lung cancer and I do not think he got good treatment. Personally everyone I know does not get good treatment. I do not agree that Americans get good healthcare. We pay alot for it but get little in return.

 

[musicmanbass]

Shuttler, thank you SO much for sharing your ACTUAL, REAL experience with healthcare across the EU and US! You have seen and been through all of the things that CNN and the like don't talk about. I wish more folks like you who have been there and done that would speak up about the way things are going now, vs the talking heads and brainless followers who expect that great health care should be free to all, at the govt's expense.

"I hear it's so amazing in France!" they say. Any of those folks watching the rioting over that country's economic state recently?

 

[mechanicx]

Cutehumor, from what I've seen if they thought you weren't well insured they probably would've let you die. One time I injured my hand and at the time didn't have insurance. It wasn't clear if my hand would ever be the same or even open and close. And all the medical people gathered around disappeared when they heard I didn't have insurance.

As astronomical as your bills were, at least they did work on you and save you. I wished I could explain the situation with my Dad. he has Medicare and Anthem. They billed the insurance a lot but didn't do much for him.

 

[Gary Allan]

Quote:
Goal of any for-profit company is to make money for the shareholders and to charge as much as possible for their product or service.


Yeah, but most corporations don't dictate what they make nor the standards of product purchasing that the consumer must buy. Doctors, lawyers, and accountants determine what procedures are standard/required and doctors, lawyers, and accountants determine what is to be paid for those services. They may not work for the same interests, but they have the same goals and both work the market without competition to themselves.

The evolution has done what all ultimate business evolutions have done, squeeze out the middle man. Doctors will still make their income, but will work harder for it. The profits have been upshifted to the corporations.

 

[JimPghPA]

The US hospitals and insurance companies work together in a very orginized way. The bill you see is a front. What you do not see is the amount that the hospital will accept as payment in full for the part the insurance company pays.

The amount the insurnance companies pay is much less than you think. But if you do not have insurance the amount the hospital would change you is one hundred percent of the front, not the much smaller number that the insurnce companies pay.

In a way, the hospitals are have to do this because of the people who do not have insurance and never pay there bill.

 

[mechanicx]

I know what you are saying. It doesn't make any sense that they do this though. If they both know what rate will be payed for the procedures then why bill at a much higher rate? And sometimes if not oftentimes you do get a bill for what the insurance didn't cover. For example you might get a letter from medicare listing how much a procedure was billed minus what was paid and that may you owe the difference. From looking at my Dad's medicare statement I wouldn't call it a much lower amount payed than billed but a somewhat reduce amount.

 

[d00df00d]

Originally Posted By: JimPghPA
In a way, the hospitals are have to do this because of the people who do not have insurance and never pay there bill.

Exactly right. This, plus the fact that uninsured people tend to let health problems go out of control and require MORE money to be spent on their care, are two reasons for which reducing the cost of health care involves insuring as many people as possible and making people who refuse to have insurance still pay into the system that will probably save their lives one day. Cough cough. Health care provisons killed by Congress. Cough cough.

To be fair, though, there are LOTS of other inefficiencies (e.g. paperwork, poor records sharing, etc.) that not only waste money but cause huge errors in treatment. More errors means more malpractice lawsuits. More malpractice lawsuits leads to higher malpractice insurance costs and more excessively cautious procedures. More excessively cautious procedures means slower response and resolution. Lather, rinse, repeat...

 

[Shuttler]

I am very sorry for the mechanicx's Mom. The bill shall be disputed if the procedures on the bill were not actually performed.
And I sincerely sympathize with Mr Cutehumor and everybody else who had a life-threatening condition. His life was saved. Hopefully, he does not regret the fact. Of course, reforms are needed to make it more affordable and accessible for working people. No question about it.
I was just trying to give those who were born into this wonderful country a different angle. Not disputing financial aspect.
What kind of reform is possible to make people more responsible, more intelligent and more forward thinking though?
His Mom will most likely end up being admitted to the ER some time later with the same problem and the same or even bigger bill. As for part-time workers and 20-year old students, I can only say that billions of medical bill dollars go written off, and we all end up paying more.
I also know quite a few people who have 4k square feet homes and drive bad-a&& trucks to office work in downtown while complaining that the tooth crown they were offered and refused costs too much..
There are many facets to the health care cost story.

As for greener grass elsewhere, you can always try it. Provided, you can survive the move. Are you portable? Do you know the foreign language? Are your skills portable? They have truly excellent medical care in Argentina, I am not kidding. (Just visited with an old friend whose life was saved by docs there. Lung cancer as well. The fact that he is a high class ski instructor and works double season in Chapelco, Aspen and Chamonix and makes good living helps too..)
In a lot of those superb European medical care pastures you could die without supplemental private insurance. Dialisys, for one is covered even for Medicaid folks here. Try it in many other exemplary countries.
Many years ago, while still in Munich I remember researching the location to land in US. I am a scientist by training, and overdid my research somewhat. Did my own coefficients like number of cops per number teachers, number of churches per number of strip clubs, etc. So, at that time, this particular not so large provincial town in US had 5 MRI units at various location. The whole Western Germany had four. Welcome to reality.
Again, this system is far from being perfect and can be improved. But there are to approaches: passive and active. Reminds me a saying we had in old country about two kinds of poor people: ones that want to become rich themselves, and the ones that want rich to become poor.
As for the doctors: those folks do not live much of a life, it's a life of devotion, akin to the life of a monk. There are exceptions, of course. I just don't buy the assertion that our politicians live life of devotion and act of the goodness of their hearts. Markets, if left unchecked, can screw up big time, yet they always self-adjust. Politicians never do that.
In other words, nobody will do it for you. Improve yourself, improve every day, and do it yourself. Nobody will do it for you.
Regrettably, more and more folks learn about life in other countries from Oprah's shows or Peter Jennings

 

[Tom NJ]

I paid $15,500 this year for zero days in the hospital - that's just my health insurance premium!

Tom NJ

 

[mechanicx]

I just wanted to correct one thing I said or maybe gave the impression that the bill had procedures not done and that's why it was so high. I looked at the bill again and the $7000 was for the room for 5 days (she wanted to leave on day 2 but they basically wouldn't let her). Had she had the procedure the bill would have easily been twice what it was.

What I meant when I said they bill for things they didn't really do, I was thinking more along the lines of for example if the physical therapist came in the room and said "Hi" 3 times that week it might be billed for $500 each time.

 

[Shuttler]

The laparoscopic procedure for the gallbaldder or liver ducts are not that huge. But the total bill for the procedure is also three-fold: anesthesiologists, surgeon(s) and the hospital. I know, that is shocking. Take your mechanic's bill for example. It may be $60 per hour. Subtract, the rent for the shop, bills, tools, supplies, fluids, etc. and his cut before taxes is about $20. Similar story for drive for hire transportation. Gas, tear and wear, regulatory nonsense overhead, and your $60 ride to the airport leaves $15 in the cabbies/shuttler/towncarman pocket before taxes. So, what do the majority of them do? They cut corners. Buying salvaged vehicles, tires of questionable origin and quality, cheapest parts and labor. The only way to make it is to get high volume. Or to price yourself right..
In this economy?
I am fortunate, very fortunate. I don't have to buy tires from thieves and do other things many other of my colleagues do.
Like rent a town car from a rental agency and switch the whole front end. I better not go there. Imagine, your doctor has to resort himself to analogous tricks..

 

[Virtuoso]

We live in a town of about 5,500 that's lucky enough to have our own hospital.

Cost to deliver my baby boy: Just shy of $5,600. Induction with no complications, vaginal delivery, typical out-the-door in two days stay.

I'd hate to see what the cost would have been at a major hospital in a large city.

 

[Shuttler]

Yes, there are for-profit and non-profit hospitals. Most general public does not even know that. Why? There were not told, I guess.
Small towns are far more humane in many regards.

Congratulations on your newborn!