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Yeah but come on. It's one thing to program something with nebulous requirements. The cost of the X-ray machine is known. The cost of collecting X-rays can be
by umvi 7y ago
Yeah but come on. It's one thing to program something with nebulous requirements.
The cost of the X-ray machine is known. The cost of collecting X-rays can be calculated deterministically.
The only thing similar to programming is trying to diagnose a rare disease or tricky condition. But for run-of-the-mill deterministic procedures, the cost should absolutely be known.
- commandlinefan 7y agoWell, I think so too, but - just to play devil’s advocate - many of my former bosses would almost certainly say something like, “the cost of the web server is known. The cost of collecting the web traffic can be calculated deterministically. We’re just talking about a website here, the cost should absolutely be known.”
- umvi 7y agoWell are you asking me to setup infrastructure or to design you a website? The first is deterministic and I can certainly give you a fixed price/timeframe to set up your web servers/DNS/etc. Designing a website on the other hand, isn't deterministic. That mandates lots of requirements gathering and suffering through iterations where the peanut gallery criticizes every CSS choice and demands minor CSS tweaks until some arbitrary "feel" is achieved.
- carapace 7y agoThe prices don't change in a supermarket if you edit your shopping list, eh? A hospital can't predict everything a patient will need (their shopping list), but they should be able to account for the cost of each procedure/drug/test/bandage/etc... eh?
- Fomite 7y agoThe problem is a lot of that isn't deterministic. There's a lot of "If Then" statements that aren't easy to price ahead of time. Like, your procedure is very different if your doctor decides they could use a specialist consult.
- carapace 7y ago> your procedure is very different if your doctor decides they could use a specialist consult. The necessity of the specialist consult may be unexpected, but it doesn't follow that the cost of it should be secret or obscure, eh? The intrinsic unpredictability of health care isn't an excuse for additional unpredictability of cost.