who is taking a hospital to court over an exorbitant bill.
The man was taken to Carolinas Medical Center in 2007
...but took issue with a $14,419 bill for his three-day stay,
plus another $5,556 for his hospital room.
Problem is, the hospital did not itemize his bill.
Robert Talford...:
...How long would it take them to prove to me and to you
that their cost was reasonable?
...They are telling you that ‘we charge $5,000 for a bed in a hospital
and we don’t have to tell you what the charges consist of.”
They included enormous markups on drugs,
some inflated more than 20 times.
It’s hard to believe all of these costs were justified.
...in some countries doctors and hospitals
actually post prices on waiting room walls
(as a diner would a menu)
so patients know what costs what up front.
...Why can’t we do the same?"
Allen
1 comment:
“One of the things I learned from T.R. Reid’s excellent book about health care reform here and in other countries (“The Healing of America: A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper, and Fairer Health Care”) is that in some countries doctors and hospitals actually post prices on waiting room walls (as a diner would a menu) so patients know what costs what up front.
What a novel concept. Why can’t we do the same?” - Allen Johnson
Welcome to 1972 Mr. Johnson! Talk about behind the curve. Failure to post prices in the realm of health-care is a four decade old observation/argument.
There is no need to go on “global quests” nor confuse oneself with the political no-meaning term “fair”, one can merely spend ten minutes reading Milton Friedman’s essay How to Cure Health Care, 07/30/2001 [link follows].
http://www.hoover.org/publications/hoover-digest/article/7298
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