3 ms·

Do you know what the facility/hospital fee component is out of curiosity?

maxerickson 4y ago
For a head CT scan I had a few years ago, where the ER doctor likely ordered it to rule out an abscess in my jaw (I didn't interview her to understand her thinking), I paid ~$2000 for the scan, like $700 for the ER visit, like $500 to the doctor and like $20 to the radiologist. The doctors billed separately. It was just a sinus infection that was irritating a cavity, which was making my whole jaw ache to where I couldn't sleep (overnight Saturday), and I went in out of some combination of panic and concern that it was escalating. It rankles me to no end that they up charged the visit because of the consult, where what really happened is the doctor ordered a test that allowed someone else to do a definitive diagnosis and more or less completely removed their liability (both by removing uncertainty and by shifting it). I also can't begin to reconcile the cost of the scan itself (but don't really have any information about their actual costs). I dunno, maybe it did actually cost them a bunch of money to wheel me over to the CT room and back.
- haldujai 4y ago
  Yeah that’s insanely upcharged. Being generous a high end ER CT scanner is in the $200,000 to $300,000 range. Contrast is a few bucks. Technologist + porter are generously paid $100 combined + whatever you want to give for overhead, noting a lot of these employees are officially “part time” to save on benefits. Given that an average ER scanner does something like 80 studies a day, sounds like they’re depreciating over a week…
  - maxerickson 4y ago
    That matches the 'ballpark' costs I had sort of assumed. It's a small town hospital, so I wouldn't be surprised if their volume is quite a bit lower than that. Which still doesn't get to the cost being reasonable. 35,000 people in the county, with some of those people being closer or equal distance to other facilities.

For a head CT scan I had a few years ago, where the ER doctor likely ordered it to rule out an abscess in my jaw (I didn't interview her to understand her thinking), I paid ~$2000 for the scan, like $700 for the ER visit, like $500 to the doctor and like $20 to the radiologist. The doctors billed separately. It was just a sinus infection that was irritating a cavity, which was making my whole jaw ache to where I couldn't sleep (overnight Saturday), and I went in out of some combination of panic and concern that it was escalating. It rankles me to no end that they up charged the visit because of the consult, where what really happened is the doctor ordered a test that allowed someone else to do a definitive diagnosis and more or less completely removed their liability (both by removing uncertainty and by shifting it). I also can't begin to reconcile the cost of the scan itself (but don't really have any information about their actual costs). I dunno, maybe it did actually cost them a bunch of money to wheel me over to the CT room and back.

haldujai 4y ago
Yeah that’s insanely upcharged. Being generous a high end ER CT scanner is in the $200,000 to $300,000 range. Contrast is a few bucks. Technologist + porter are generously paid $100 combined + whatever you want to give for overhead, noting a lot of these employees are officially “part time” to save on benefits. Given that an average ER scanner does something like 80 studies a day, sounds like they’re depreciating over a week…
- maxerickson 4y ago
  That matches the 'ballpark' costs I had sort of assumed. It's a small town hospital, so I wouldn't be surprised if their volume is quite a bit lower than that. Which still doesn't get to the cost being reasonable. 35,000 people in the county, with some of those people being closer or equal distance to other facilities.