[dheera]

It's meaningless unless you can get a price before you get services.

The trouble is even if the price list says $500 for something, they'll charge you $8000 for "general classification" and $2000 for a Tylenol.

I have a remote heart monitor at my bedside that, upon pressing a button, wirelessly retrieves data about arrythmia incidents from my implanted defibrillator and sends any incidents to the hospital. Every time I hit the button, even if there are ZERO incidents for them to review, I get hit with a $300 bill for some "general classification". So I hit the button less often than I'm supposed to.

[1letterunixname]

Exactly.

Come in unconscious and bleeding out from a car wreck: "No, no, no.. take me to the other hospital with lower prices. And I don't want $100 acetaminophen."

[dheera]

Not all hospital visits are emergencies. I had an implanted defibrillator replaced recently. It's a life-saving device but I had a 3-month window to do it, so I most definitely picked "the other hospital" that I didn't have billing issues with the last time.

Also, a car wreck should not be a reason to nickel-and-dime someone unreasonably. And if I knew they were giving me acetominaphen for $1000 and I could wait it out for an hour I'd 100% refuse it and ask a family member to bring me some from Walgreen's for <$10. I'm not exactly swimming in money here.