[purplelobster]

From my experience, the weirdest thing is that you're rarely informed about something having a cost. It can be something as simple as a one minute chat that later shows up on the bill as a separate item. Not only that, but every time I've tried to ask what something costs, I can never ever get a straight answer out of them, I'll just have to find out when I get the bill and pray it's not too much. It's insanity.

[chris_mahan]

There should be a requirement that doctors post all prices like car mechanics.

[epoxyhockey]

Mechanics post prices? The only reliable way I've found to determine the real cost of car repair is to comparison shop and look online in enthusiast forums. Even then, there is still room for haggling.

[chris_mahan]

Not only do they post prices, they will write an estimate and you have to sign it in order for them to begin work, and they can't exceed estimated costs without your approval. (In California)

[mgkimsal]

My wife was in the ER a couple years ago - I asked multiple people (two nurses and a doctor) how much any of this would cost, and they all said "I don't know".

[guymcgwire]

My wife was also in the ER a couple of years ago. She was there for about nine hours. At one point the attending came by and spoke with us for less than a minute. He basically repeated what the nurses and PAs had been telling us for the past few hours. But he clearly wasn't paying attention to the case because his summary was clumsy and lacking in detail. It was no more helpful than what I was reading on Web MD on my iPhone. My wife's exact words when he left the room were, "That was weird." Later, when we looked through the bill from the ordeal, it turned out that this awkward, uninformative, 45-second interaction was billed at almost $1000. If he had told us ahead of time that his unnecessary analysis was going to cost $1000 (even if it was paid by insurance) I would have thrown a shoe at him and told him to get lost. Healthcare is not a marketplace.

[kamaal]

>>It was no more helpful than what I was reading on Web MD on my iPhone.

This kind of thing is what makes automation in the medical industry ripe for disruption. In fact close 80% of the information any doctor can give you in case of first 2-3 visits is what you would get by doing simple google search or reading WebMD or even looking up the Merck's manual.

Unless you have serious problem, automation can solve most of the problems people have.

>> If he had told us ahead of time that his unnecessary analysis was going to cost $1000 (even if it was paid by insurance) I would have thrown a shoe at him and told him to get lost. Healthcare is not a marketplace.

Exactly why we need automation. A while back CA's were considered accounting and auditing geniuses. Most of them are out of job today as accounting software got more automation and intelligence.

Wait till the time when most doctors go out of job as software automation sweeps health care industry.

[roc]

The sad part is that they usually truly don't.

Because not only do hospitals have largely-fictional rates they try to pass to insurers, there are also the medicare rates, the medicaid rates, the rates they pass to those trying to pay out-of-pocket, the rates for the generic equivalent they'll switch to after you agree to a drug/procedure due to your coverage, the discounted rates they pass to people who will almost certainly let the bill go to collections if it isn't heavily discounted, etc.

[kamaal]

What's surprising in all this is, do they actually keep track if a doctor passing by had a quick 2 minute chat?

How do you go about it? You go and tell the billing department- "I talked with patient X for 2 minutes" and then Y, Z , A, B so bill it? If you talked to something like 100 people how do you keep track of it?

Sounds like an extremely cheap way of ripping off people.

If only I could bill my company that way every time some comes to ask me a question or needs my help or a code review or whatever!!!

[rdl]

That's what the EHR is for.