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This idea is based on healthcare not being a scam. You can ask for a price and then will tell you a price but even if you pay that price, up front, in cash, yo
by stuckagain 10y ago
This idea is based on healthcare not being a scam. You can ask for a price and then will tell you a price but even if you pay that price, up front, in cash, you will later get bills for more "services", received or perceived. In any other industry people would go to prison.
- maxxxxx 10y agoThere is way too much money in the current system for pricing to become legitimate. All the waste and overcharging is someone's profit. And the Republicans certainly won't do anything about this in the next years. Because "regulation" is bad.
- zanny 10y agoIt is the way that the licensed practice of medicine is so heavily regulated that creates the noncompetitive environment in the first place. Though I wouldn't expect Republicans to ever admit that, at least congressional ones. If the regulation existed under Reagan its the best thing ever (see: if establishment corporations abuse it) and if wasn't its communism (see: donor corporations don't want to be regulated).
- stuckagain 10y agoThe services are too expensive, yes, but that's not what I'm getting at. I'm saying that even the inflated sticker price won't prevent tons of random other bills from flying out of nowhere. Once I got an anesthesia bill -- for almost ten thousand dollars -- after an event that didn't involve anesthesia, at which the anesthesiologist was not even present. There was just some stored procedure in their database that fired off bills.
- maxxxxx 10y agoThe financial part of medicine seems pretty unregulated. They can charge phantasy prices and frequently charge for services never delivered without consequences. In other industries this would be plain fraud.
- MBCook 10y agoAn insurance free market would fix this. Everyone knows that. Except, of course, you shouldn't be able to buy over state lines. That's for your protection for some reason. And once everyone has free market insurance then everything will be fine. You'll be able to choose the plan that can help you cover your bills. Your bills will still be generated by a labyrinthian and byzantine system that no one including the people in charge of running it actually understand driven heavily by profits, phases of the moon, insanity, and corn prices. But you'll have free market insurance (sort of)! So everything will be fine! Realistically, I get the feeling that we've found new ways repeatedly to direct our system down blind allies to the point where I wonder if we can ever find our way back out without a massive disaster/collapse.
- zzalpha 10y agoIt's also not a service people can easily "shop around" for in an emergency, or go without. Heck, the information asymmetry, alone, between the buyer of the service and the person offering it (that is, the information required to evaluate if they're getting the correct treatment at an appropriate cost) ensures the market will not be a fair one. Anyone who's gone to a mechanic that's performed unnecessary work knows what that's like... and that's just a car.
- rgbrenner 10y agoThe current situation isn't like a mechanic at all. If a mechanic tells me I need some work done, I can call various mechanics and ask what they would charge to do that, and they'll tell me. If you try that with a hospital, they'll tell you no. Go ahead and try asking your doctor what something will cost. If I could ask for a price up front, then people who aren't in an emergency could shop around. That would force hospitals to actually compete, which would normally mean most providers would be within a range of the average market price. So when an emergency does occur and you were taken to a random hospital, chances are that hospital would have prices close to the market price.
- sjg007 10y agoRight now you shop at the copay level as a function of insurance. PPOs were a great scam to force coinsurance onto the masses.
- zzalpha 10y agoMy comment about mechanics was specifically with regards to information asymmetry. That is, 99% of people do not know enough about cars to determine if they are being fleeced. Now imagine dealing with the human body. Information symmetry leads to market failures: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_asymmetry https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_asymmetry
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- hkmurakami 10y ago>You can ask for a price and then will tell you a price but even if you pay that price, up front, in cash, you will later get bills for more "services", received or perceived. In any other industry people would go to prison. Not arguing with you, but there's another field where this is common: Law.
- stuckagain 10y agoI haven't ever got a surprise legal bill, and I have a fancy famous lawyer that you've heard of. I don't think there's any comparison.
- erentz 10y agoYes. My wife recently went for a physical, something covered fully under our plan. We were surprised to see a bill follow and a separate consultation charge (not covered) alongside the physical charge (covered and zero rated). It turns out because she asked the doctor a question the doctor decided that was outside the scope of the physical and constituted a separate consultation. Of course how you're supposed to know what is or isn't in scope I have no idea.
- el_benhameen 10y agoAt open enrollment this year, our insurance rep explicitly told us not to ask questions at the yearly physical. Absurd.
- noonespecial 10y agoWow. Had the same experience. I thought it was a joke. He literally said "anything you say can be billed against you" like it was a detective show or something. I had no idea this was a real thing! So doctors must be added to the list along with tax collectors and police where you just stay quiet during confrontations. Wow.
- pixl97 10y agoAnd we wonder why we have such bad health outcomes in the US
- altano 10y agoI can one-up you: I had a doctor start up a conversation about going to the same college I did, which put the physical at just over 15m instead of just under, which doubled the bill. I don't think the doctor was maliciously driving up the price, just too abstracted away from the billing department.
- megablast 10y agoHow is that one upping at all? That seems quite reasonable and accidental.
- WalterBright 10y agoHappened to a friend of mine who shopped around and got a commitment in advance for the price. He reminded them of their commitment after they billed him for all the extras, and refused to pay it. They withdrew the extra charges.
- rcraft 10y agoThis is not common. Not sure why you feel so compelled to disagree with all the other posters regarding their headaches with healthcare billing/cost experiences throughout this thred. Odd. I contacted multiple hospitals for cost estimates on a simple procedure (hours of phone calls) and only one would actually give me an "estimate." They went out of their way to explain that this was only an estimate and it could easily end up costing more than this due to a number of factors. I really doubt any hospital will ever give you a committed price for any procedure. I would love to be proven wrong from any other posters :).
- WalterBright 10y agoGet the estimate in writing and then compare it with your bill. If there are more charges, they'll need to explain how those are unforeseen factors, or you can legitimately refuse to pay for them. You can also show the estimate to other hospitals - this will often loosen them up about quoting a price because they'll want the business.
- FireBeyond 10y agoUh, what? There is nothing binding about the estimate (unless you're in the auto repair industry), so you cannot "legitimately refuse to pay for it" unless they explain "how those are unforeseen factors". Typically, indeed, you'll find wording to that exact effect. "This is only an estimate. Actual costs may differ."
- WalterBright 10y agoAsk for a binding estimate.