[gricardo99]

"The doctors in the emergency room did multiple tests including a CT scan and ultrasound"

CT scan is expensive. Each scan (CT, ultrasound) is reviewed by a radio-logical expert (i.e. doctor), plus taking up an ER bed for many hours, lab work, IV medications, etc... It adds up pretty quickly.

I'd love to know how much this actually costs in say Canada, or the UK, and I don't mean to the patient (I know they wouldn't pay much if anything), but the actual cost on the system.

[DanBC]

That information is available here, I think:

https://improvement.nhs.uk/resources/national-tariff-1719/

This workbook has a sheet for A&E treatment. https://improvement.nhs.uk/uploads/documents/Copy_of_Annex_A...

A&E prices 2017/18 Return to contents

		Tariff (£)	
    HRG code	HRG name	                             Type 1 and 2 Departments	Type 3 Departments
    Emergency Medicine, Any Investigation with Category 5 Treatment	          322 	63 
    Emergency Medicine, Category 3 Investigation with Category 4 Treatment	  293 	63 
    Emergency Medicine, Category 3 Investigation with Category 1-3 Treatment      212 	63 
    Emergency Medicine, Category 2 Investigation with Category 4 Treatment	  192 	63 
    Emergency Medicine, Category 2 Investigation with Category 3 Treatment	  161 	63 
    Emergency Medicine, Category 1 Investigation with Category 3-4 Treatment      113 	63 
    Emergency Medicine, Category 2 Investigation with Category 2 Treatment	  141 	63 
    Emergency Medicine, Category 2 Investigation with Category 1 Treatment	  130 	63 
    Emergency Medicine, Category 1 Investigation with Category 1-2 Treatment       91 	63 
    Emergency Medicine, Dental Care	                                           82 	63 
    Emergency Medicine, No Investigation with No Significant Treatment   	   63 	63 
    Emergency Medicine, Patient Dead On Arrival	                                   91 	63

Prices in GBP.

[gricardo99]

This is very interesting, thanks for sharing. Although this does list prices, it seems to me that these are mandated/set prices, and not necessarily reflective of the true cost of the care provided. Unless... these prices are set with the goal to reach at least a break-even on any care provided? I suppose the overall health system has to break-even, unless it's running a deficit, but I honestly have no idea how that corresponds to the listed prices.

Apologies if I'm way off on this, I'm by no means an expert or have much experience/knowledge on this topic, but attempting to make some sense of it for comparison.

[seanp2k2]

If going down this route, we must also ask why a CT scanner costs millions of dollars. Medical equipment costs are equally insane. Basically, the costs of everything in the medical field are greatly inflated because they can be.

[Balgair]

FDA approval is very hard to obtain. And for good reason.

For a 'simple' thing like an internal titanium staple to attach to bone, it'll be about 10 years before the 'go/no-go' decision from the FDA. All the effort could go up in smoke 10 years in. That's ~10 years of investments, rat tests, lab research and upkeep, human trials and long term surveillance, paying the engineers and accountants, etc. That investment has to be re-couped plus a profit for the trouble.

The nice thing, though, is that once the medical-thingy is proofed, it is a near monopoly on it. So the re-coup is not bad. But the risk is pretty great. SV talks about risk and reward a lot, but they have nothing on bioengineering start-ups (that really do save lives and change the world).

[lostlogin]

A CT scan in the middle of the night costs less than US$1000 and the ultrasound is about half that in New Zealand. That’s at a private facility with on call staff. At a public hospital where the staff are on a shift it would be considerably less.