Most people are unaware that if they don’t use insurance, they can negotiate upfront cash prices with hospitals and providers substantially below the “list” price. Doctors are happy to do this. We get paid promptly, without paying office staff to wade through the insurance-payment morass.
So we canceled the surgery and started the scheduling process all over again, this time classifying my patient as a “self-pay” (or uninsured) patient. I quoted him a reasonable upfront cash price, as did the anesthesiologist. We contacted a different hospital and they quoted him a reasonable upfront cash price for the outpatient surgical/nursing services. He underwent his operation the very next day, with a total bill of just a little over $3,000, including doctor and hospital fees. He ended up saving $17,000 by not using insurance
This process taught us a few things. First, most people these days don’t have health “insurance.” They have prepaid health plans….
Read it all (or if necessary another link may be found there.)
Dr. Singer has put his finger squarely on the nature of the problem with the U.S. healthcare system, and its inability to provide affordable medical services. This patient’s dilemma is what happens to the residents of any nation that attempts to avoid having a truly free market in any good or service. It is as predictable as the rising and setting of the sun.
Pax et bonum,
Keith Töpfer
Absolutely correct. We no longer have health insurance. We have prepaid medical plans. If we went back to having insurance coverage for major medical events only and paid for the ordinary expenses of having sinus infections, broken bones, and so on, everything would get less expensive, by a very significant amount. I note that for large hospital bills recently, our insurer has ended up with a negotiated price which was about 40%-45% of the “stated” price, and that’s with the expense of the insurance filings. It could be less. This patient ended up paying about 15% of the “list price.”
Perhaps the Army could put Bradley Manning’s requested sex change procedure out to the lowest bidder.