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No, the bill you get for an ultrasound is a tech or a PA to run it and a doc to properly interpret it. It’s funny how popular the Wizard of Schenectady story i

No, the bill you get for an ultrasound is a tech or a PA to run it and a doc to properly interpret it. It’s funny how popular the Wizard of Schenectady story is on HN when it’s about engineers, but somehow fails to be applied to non-engineers.

Gibbon1 9y ago
> No It was my point was that the 'expensive' isn't due to the capital or maintenance cost of an ultra sound machine. Although portable units do have the advantage that in a lot of cases the attending physician can bypass the cash cow radiology department completely. As for the rude tone of your comment, I have a tens of thousands worth of test equipment on my bench and I'd never dream of billing a client an 'oscilloscope fee', a 'logic analyzer fee' or a 'spectrum analyzer fee'. And every other industry works like that, except medicine.
- madengr 9y ago
  Good point. Not to mention a radiologist bills separately from the procedure. I have a $1M antenna near field scanner at work. It looks just like a CT scanner, but I don’t bill $6k per use, then another $1k on top to process the measurements. It’s capital equipment, and I bought it since it saves measurement time, which allows me to take in more work. What a load. When we had our first kid, my wife had a “fun scan” done. A fancy 3D color ultrasound. It was $120 for a 1/2 hour session. Same diagnostic ultrasound cost $1000 on a much older machine, same person running it. There was an article on here a couple of years ago about cheap, hand held ultrasound. I was downvoted for saying youl’ll never see it in use.
  - Gibbon1 9y ago
    > I have a $1M antenna near field scanner at work. tingle Just add if one thinks a bit one can find a lot of industries that depend on renting out expensive capital equipment. Consider a taxi. A taxi might cost $25,000. Smog machines that auto shops have are not cheap. An Boeing 787 costs around $600,000 a seat. Rent a hotel room lately?
maxerickson 9y ago
I'm sure lots of people have had the experience of paying a bill for the expensive test and also a bill for the doctor to interpret it. Kind of focuses one's attention on the expensive test. I guess if utilization is low the technicians can end up costing a lot. But say they cost $200,000 a year and do one scan each working day. That's something like $1000 of labor, but it also assumes that they only manage to do 1 thing each day they work.

Gibbon1 9y ago

> No It was my point was that the 'expensive' isn't due to the capital or maintenance cost of an ultra sound machine. Although portable units do have the advantage that in a lot of cases the attending physician can bypass the cash cow radiology department completely. As for the rude tone of your comment, I have a tens of thousands worth of test equipment on my bench and I'd never dream of billing a client an 'oscilloscope fee', a 'logic analyzer fee' or a 'spectrum analyzer fee'. And every other industry works like that, except medicine.

madengr 9y ago
Good point. Not to mention a radiologist bills separately from the procedure. I have a $1M antenna near field scanner at work. It looks just like a CT scanner, but I don’t bill $6k per use, then another $1k on top to process the measurements. It’s capital equipment, and I bought it since it saves measurement time, which allows me to take in more work. What a load. When we had our first kid, my wife had a “fun scan” done. A fancy 3D color ultrasound. It was $120 for a 1/2 hour session. Same diagnostic ultrasound cost $1000 on a much older machine, same person running it. There was an article on here a couple of years ago about cheap, hand held ultrasound. I was downvoted for saying youl’ll never see it in use.
- Gibbon1 9y ago
  > I have a $1M antenna near field scanner at work. tingle Just add if one thinks a bit one can find a lot of industries that depend on renting out expensive capital equipment. Consider a taxi. A taxi might cost $25,000. Smog machines that auto shops have are not cheap. An Boeing 787 costs around $600,000 a seat. Rent a hotel room lately?

maxerickson 9y ago

I'm sure lots of people have had the experience of paying a bill for the expensive test and also a bill for the doctor to interpret it. Kind of focuses one's attention on the expensive test. I guess if utilization is low the technicians can end up costing a lot. But say they cost $200,000 a year and do one scan each working day. That's something like $1000 of labor, but it also assumes that they only manage to do 1 thing each day they work.