If you can shop around in the US for something like that it can matter too. To correct my son's tongue tie the first ENT would have been over $1500 out of pock

If you can shop around in the US for something like that it can matter too. To correct my son's tongue tie the first ENT would have been over $1500 out of pocket, including anesthesia. The second one did it in his office as part of another appointment we had related to his hearing, total out of pocket $50. IMO, The biggest problem is really lack of transparency for this stuff. If a hospital takes government money (and pretty much every one of them does), it should be required to publish its rates like a utility does.