4 ms·

Well presumably you're not suffering from an ailment that requires immediate application of TV, Angry Birds or a 2x4 in those cases.

by gnoway 13y ago

twoodfin 13y ago
Emergency care has to be just a piece of the cost pie. People shop around for health care all the time, including for very expensive things like childbirth.
- GabrielF00 13y ago
  There was just a big NY Times article on the cost of childbirth. Turns out its extremely hard to shop around. Not only is it much more expensive in the US than in any other country to give birth, but, with a few exceptions, it's very difficult to get pricing information in advance. To quote: >When she became pregnant, Ms. Martin called her local hospital inquiring about the price of maternity care; the finance office at first said it did not know, and then gave her a range of $4,000 to $45,000. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/01/health/american-way-of-birth-costliest-in-the-world.html?pagewanted=all http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/01/health/american-way-of-bir...
  - mpyne 13y ago
    Plus when you "shop around" you still need to select a doctor's office which is close enough to be within viable range once the moment of delivery is at hand. Even in the suburban areas I've lived in, for us that meant a "selection" of between 3-4 potential clinics, not exactly a very wide choice (and completely based on where I lived so it could very well have been that I would have been selecting from 4 of the worst clinics in the whole state).
  - foobarian 13y ago
    On the billing side, I feel like there is a lot of inefficiency due to errors caused by complicated systems. When my wife was pregnant, at some point we got billed several thousand dollars for a procedure the insurance company refused to cover. She called the insurance co., and they (I think) recoded the procedure to something that cost a couple of hundred dollars and was covered to boot. It seemed like there was a bunch of new employees on both sides who were learning as they went (and pressing random buttons). So forget in advance, pricing was hard to find out even post facto ;)
- rdtsc 13y ago
  So how do you bring your child back after you ended up picking a cheaper bad doctor who kills your child. If you buy a bad TV you can return it and provide a bad review, so next time you shop from a better store. If you buy a car and it turns out to be a piece of shit, you just lost lots of money. It will take you years to recover and save for a better, but you still can. You can't get your life back, you can't get your health back sometimes, you can't return your dead child back. That's the problem.
  - lostlogin 13y ago
    Do you link the expense with the quality? If bad doctors are out there its not up to the consumer to stop them, this is what regulatory bodies are for. basic public safety. Cost (in most places I have been - mostly within Australia, New Zealand and the UK) has little to do with the quality of the care.
jes 13y ago
Of the healthcare that is delivered, most is non-emergent.
- aestra 13y ago
  What if your primary refers you do doctor X for condition Y?

Well presumably you're not suffering from an ailment that requires immediate application of TV, Angry Birds or a 2x4 in those cases.

by gnoway 13y ago

Well presumably you're not suffering from an ailment that requires immediate application of TV, Angry Birds or a 2x4 in those cases.

twoodfin 13y ago

Emergency care has to be just a piece of the cost pie. People shop around for health care all the time, including for very expensive things like childbirth.

GabrielF00 13y ago
There was just a big NY Times article on the cost of childbirth. Turns out its extremely hard to shop around. Not only is it much more expensive in the US than in any other country to give birth, but, with a few exceptions, it's very difficult to get pricing information in advance. To quote: >When she became pregnant, Ms. Martin called her local hospital inquiring about the price of maternity care; the finance office at first said it did not know, and then gave her a range of $4,000 to $45,000. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/01/health/american-way-of-birth-costliest-in-the-world.html?pagewanted=all http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/01/health/american-way-of-bir...
- mpyne 13y ago
  Plus when you "shop around" you still need to select a doctor's office which is close enough to be within viable range once the moment of delivery is at hand. Even in the suburban areas I've lived in, for us that meant a "selection" of between 3-4 potential clinics, not exactly a very wide choice (and completely based on where I lived so it could very well have been that I would have been selecting from 4 of the worst clinics in the whole state).
- foobarian 13y ago
  On the billing side, I feel like there is a lot of inefficiency due to errors caused by complicated systems. When my wife was pregnant, at some point we got billed several thousand dollars for a procedure the insurance company refused to cover. She called the insurance co., and they (I think) recoded the procedure to something that cost a couple of hundred dollars and was covered to boot. It seemed like there was a bunch of new employees on both sides who were learning as they went (and pressing random buttons). So forget in advance, pricing was hard to find out even post facto ;)
rdtsc 13y ago
So how do you bring your child back after you ended up picking a cheaper bad doctor who kills your child. If you buy a bad TV you can return it and provide a bad review, so next time you shop from a better store. If you buy a car and it turns out to be a piece of shit, you just lost lots of money. It will take you years to recover and save for a better, but you still can. You can't get your life back, you can't get your health back sometimes, you can't return your dead child back. That's the problem.
- lostlogin 13y ago
  Do you link the expense with the quality? If bad doctors are out there its not up to the consumer to stop them, this is what regulatory bodies are for. basic public safety. Cost (in most places I have been - mostly within Australia, New Zealand and the UK) has little to do with the quality of the care.

jes 13y ago

Of the healthcare that is delivered, most is non-emergent.

aestra 13y ago
What if your primary refers you do doctor X for condition Y?