Does healthcare really need to be this expensive? Recent accident.

[Sluggo]

The qoute of $50,000 was given to me by my friend who found me on the side of the road that night.

She is a RN in trauma at the exact hospital that I went to. Her colleagues and friends were the ones who were on staff that night.

We'll see.

I hope you're right that it's $6K and not $50K.

I called my neighbor who is an electrician at a hospital, he thinks you will wind up owing about $964,000. He is pretty stoned though, he might have meant $964.

 

[RocksteadyDotNet]

LOL, America.

Also, FBB is an epic level troll. Even after all this time people still get trolled by him. That's how good he his.


Typical FBB Thread:

Title - My house got robbed, they stole my laptop! This suburb sucks!

4 pages later - Wait, it wasnt robbed, I just left my laptop at work.

 

[SSSnail]

my father was telling me the other day that back in the mid 80s taking me to the doctor cost $30. that's not with insurance, not a copay, nothing. just $30 cash for the doctor. copays are just about that right now. ridiculous.

Right now, you can walk into a doctor's office in Singapore, get checked up for your common malady, get medicine for it and pay $40, WITHOUT any insurance.

Something is seriously wrong with our country.

 

[Triumph]

What they said. If you are stupid enough to ride a donor cycle, carry good health insurance. And stop your whining about costs until you have a real bill in your hands.


Actually, stop your damn whining all together. You are lucky to be alive.


Oh yeah, sign your damn donor card. Next time you may not be so lucky & it would be a shame to let your organs go to waste when others could be helped.

Ah, so now we've turned the thread into a chance to bash motorcyclists. Great.

 

[marvdmartian]

That king of price helps fund the entire healthcare system.

Costs rise over time because advances in technology and medicine aren't cheap. We expect to live longer and better, but treatment costs time and money, and professionals need to be paid well.

There's also an entire supports system for the medical field, including 3rd party laboratories, medical billing, insurance, etc. It's a huge segment of our economy.

But, mostly, it's the damn ambulance chasing lawyers, who have driven the cost of malpractice insurance sky high. Next time you go see your doctor, ask him how much coverage he carries, and don't be shocked if he quotes you a million dollar (or more) figure!

Should medical professionals be held accountable for making mistakes that cost people their lives, or cause them to suffer grievous injury? Absolutely. Should a 35 year old man who makes $30K a year (who will have, maximum, 30 more years until retirement, thus earning no more than $900K in that time) be winning tens of millions of dollars in settlements? HELL NO.

It's the same lawyers, who advertise winning million dollar settlements for auto accidents on TV, that have made your auto insurance premiums so damn ridiculous too.

 

[911paramedic]

my father was telling me the other day that back in the mid 80s taking me to the doctor cost $30. that's not with insurance, not a copay, nothing. just $30 cash for the doctor. copays are just about that right now. ridiculous.

I remember those days too.

Our standard ALS rate was around $900 just to show up, and then the billing dept added mileage and all the supplies we used. We never charged for blankets though, wtf?

The problem is medical supplies are inherently expensive because quite a few of them need to be sterile. Not things like a collar though, those are in flimsy plastic. I remember when I had shoulder surgery, they charged me $12 for a felt pen that I used to put a big "X" on the right shoulder, and write "not this one" on the other, totally bogus.

Nobody pays though, so they increase it for everybody else. It really is a fucked up system. I used to not check for petty crap on my run reports.

 

[roguerower]

OP, you're so full of shit. You decided to post this in OT after it went around and around in the Garage.

http://forums.anandtech.com/showpost.php?p=32505692&postcount=23

You said $5k for medical costs. Not the $50k you're talking about now. You don't have a solid number and keep making shit up to try and drum up moral support because you were stupid enough not to carry proper insurance.

 

[911paramedic]

OP, you're so full of shit. You decided to post this in OT after it went around and around in the Garage.

http://forums.anandtech.com/showpost.php?p=32505692&postcount=23

You said $5k for medical costs. Not the $50k you're talking about now. You don't have a solid number and keep making shit up to try and drum up moral support because you were stupid enough not to carry proper insurance.

Would be $35K without insurance I think.

He said $35K plus some other stuff it looks like.

 

[Fingolfin269]

I think health care prices are ridiculous. But I also realize this is a known fact in my day to day life. People should be able to do what they want in life but to be honest OP, if I were in your self employed situation where I'm paying for everything myself and know my insurance only covers 60%, then you better believe I wouldn't be rolling around on a motorcycle.

 

[sdifox]

US Healthcare is pretty sad given how much is spent on it.

 

[Capt Caveman]

OP, you're so full of shit. You decided to post this in OT after it went around and around in the Garage.

http://forums.anandtech.com/showpost.php?p=32505692&postcount=23

You said $5k for medical costs. Not the $50k you're talking about now. You don't have a solid number and keep making shit up to try and drum up moral support because you were stupid enough not to carry proper insurance.

In that thread, he talks about possibly filing for bankruptcy over $5k yet has enough toys he could sell to cover the cost. And yet also, is posting about buying a new smartphone in the MD&G forum.

Based on the scenario given by the OP, since he's not able to afford the cost, maybe the ambulance crew should have left them at the scene or the hospital should have refused to admit him. Or the ambulance crew should have compared prices of different hospitals and driven him to the cheapest one though it may have been a hour away.

An underinsured novice rider shouldn't have been riding at 1am. You have two other cars for a reason.

 

[TheSiege]

I blame the government and us. If we stopped paying and if the government stopped paying then prices would come down. The problem is that people and insurance and the government pay these prices. If no one payed they would have to lower their prices to a point in which people could afford. Much like Nintendo did with the 3DS

 

[sdifox]

But, mostly, it's the damn ambulance chasing lawyers, who have driven the cost of malpractice insurance sky high. Next time you go see your doctor, ask him how much coverage he carries, and don't be shocked if he quotes you a million dollar (or more) figure!

Should medical professionals be held accountable for making mistakes that cost people their lives, or cause them to suffer grievous injury? Absolutely. Should a 35 year old man who makes $30K a year (who will have, maximum, 30 more years until retirement, thus earning no more than $900K in that time) be winning tens of millions of dollars in settlements? HELL NO.

It's the same lawyers, who advertise winning million dollar settlements for auto accidents on TV, that have made your auto insurance premiums so damn ridiculous too.

1M would be low I think. My home insurance has that much for content.

 

[Mark R]

A lot of the very high health-care costs can be attributed to the excessive malpractice suits that we are increasingly seeing. This results in "over-defensive" or "cover-your-ass" medical practice - everything gets checked, double-checked, no matter the cost, and no matter whether it actually makes a difference. Doctors are increasingly checking for everything, because they don't want to get a suit for missing the diagnosis, even if the diagnosis is irrelevant.

For example, FBB gave the example of supposedly having had an MRI after a concussion. I cannot think of a genuine reason why an ER doc should need the results of an MRI to make a decision. An MRI is expensive, costing around $400-500. A CT scan would tell an ER doc everything they need to know for $100. The MRI could be reserved for those few cases where the symptoms don't match-up with the results of the CT. Yes, the MRI provides more detail. But how will that actually change things? The vast majority of brain damage in concussion is invisible to MRI, but will still cause symptoms. If the MRI shows minor damage, that's interesting, but not particularly helpful, as the symptoms are a much more sensitive indicator. Yet, in many places, MRI for concussion is now pretty standard practice, because it reassures the doc that they're not missing something, and makes the patient think that they are getting top treatment.

And it then becomes a vicious cycle - as more docs think it's appropriate, more malpractice lawyers will see not doing it as negligence, and suddenly everyone is covering their asses, and costs are spiralling.

 

[biostud]

In Denmark the government set rates for operation costs through negotiations with the hospitals. They have to come up with a detailed economic report, and since the politicians are paying with tax kroner, and the politicians have a very hard time getting re-elected when raising taxes, they drive a hard bargain with the hospitals to ensure low cost and good results.

 

[HNNstyle]

Friend of mine killed someone on a motorcycle. He made an illegal U turn but didn't see the guy in the motorcycle coming from the other direction.

 

[AlienCraft]

If you want to practice medicine, go into the Insurance industry.

 

[alkemyst]

you are paying for the lawsuits.

 

[mattpegher]

I recently had both my wife and my daughter in the ER. Wife had an extensive workup and the bill came to about $1400 for the ER physician and about $4000 for labs and a CT.
Now first I must tell you this is my ER. The doctor is one of my associates, so I know how much he makes per hour.

He is averaging 2.5 patients/hour. Billing about 3k/hour. But He is paid only about $150/hr. Why is that? First the insurance will negotiate a rate. About 40% of the billed. Then he is paid about 30% of the time, ie 2 out every 3 patients is free. and thats in a hospital with one of the best percentages of insured patients in the state. So our billing company might get maybe 300 to 500/hour. From that they pay about 100k/yr per physician for malpractice insurance. Then the billing company takes it cut. Then our employer takes its operating expenses.

Now that 150/hr is straight pay. No benefits. No health insurance (comes out of pay 100%).

As for the hospitals charges of 4k. They get paid about 10% of billed. So figure that they probably get paid about 30% of the time as well that 4k is now about $120. ($400 for 3 patients).

How does the rest of the world do it. They have eliminated the insurance companies (financing), research, oversight, and competence from the equation.


To further highlight the problem, our hospital offers a 75% discount for cash. The probably still get more from cash payors than from insurance companies.

 

[alkemyst]

Not sure what you are confused about. He is supporting a lot of overhead.

Rest of the world doesn't allow stupid lawsuits.

 

[mattpegher]

Not sure what you are confused about. He is supporting a lot of overhead.

Rest of the world doesn't allow stupid lawsuits.

Per my malpractice carrier. Each lawsuit costs the carrier about $100k-200k even if they win. And most will settle any case if they can for under $200k, even without a risk of loss.

And the defense can't recoup expenses from the plaintif.

 

[mattpegher]

As for how much the doctor can charge. Every doctor that participates with any insurance must negotiate the price with each insurance carrier, these rates are regional and by specialty and are tied to the rate approved by medicare. Medicare rates are set by the government, so they indirectly set rates for all insurance participating physicians.

Now if a physician wants not to participate with any insurances, he can set his rate at whatever he wants, but the market will effect his business. I know of a few facilities that do that and they see very few patients, but the patients pay out of pocket. The rates are usually the same as the billed rates for other physicians but these facilities have eliminated the cost of billing and the reduced rates of reimbursement.
Most physicians that do nonelective care simply cant choose to charge outrages prices without killing their business.

 

[Corporate Thug]

Per my malpractice carrier. Each lawsuit costs the carrier about $100k-200k even if they win. And most will settle any case if they can for under $200k, even without a risk of loss.

And the defense can't recoup expenses from the plaintif.

I'm not a med mal attorney but I would be surprised if no state has a prevailing party attorney's fees statute.

100k sounds about right though.

 

[alkemyst]

i don't think the OP really understands this.

 

[mattpegher]

I'm not a med mal attorney but I would be surprised if no state has a prevailing party attorney's fees statute.

100k sounds about right though.

There was an editorial in one of the journals about an additional policy that is available in some states where the defense has money set aside to countersuit the plaintif if there is a judgement in favor of the defense.

The question is what would you be going after. Most plaintifs are unlikely to have assets to even pay for their own lawyer let alone the attorneys fee of the defense.

Not to mention that most plaintifs lawyers usually try to include as many defendents as possible to increase there chances, and possibly cause finger pointing. If they name multiple defendents then the attornies fees also sky rocket. ie name 3 defendents, get 3 lawyers, cost 3 times as much (maybe 300-600k).