A passage in a Wall Street Journal article (subscriber link) caught my eye:
On TV one night, Mrs. Kelly saw a news segment about people who try to get patients’ bills reduced. She contacted Holly Wallack, who is part of a group that works on contingency to reduce patients’ bills; she keeps one-third of what she saves clients.
Ms. Wallack began firing off complaints to M.D. Anderson. She said Mrs. Kelly had been billed more than $360 for blood tests that most insurers pay $20 or less for, and up to $120 for saline pouches that cost less than $2 at retail.
On one bill, Mrs. Kelly was charged $20 for a pair of latex gloves. On another itemized bill, Ms. Wallack found this: CTH SIL 2M 7FX 25CM CLAMP A4356, for $314. It turned out to be a penis clamp, used to control incontinence.
M.D. Anderson’s prices are reasonable compared with other hospitals, Mr. Tietjen says. The $20 price for the latex gloves, for example, takes into account the costs of acquiring and storing gloves, ones that are ripped and not used and ones used for patients who don’t pay at all, he says. The charge for the penis clamp was a “clerical error” he says; a different type of catheter was used, but the hospital waived the charge. The hospital didn’t reduce or waive other charges on Mrs. Kelly’s bills.
Maybe hospitalization should include a “BYOMS” — Bring Your Own Medical Supplies — option? Sheesh!
In fairness, I can understand hospitals’ need to make up revenue gaps from providing care to those who can’t make good on their bills, as well as to satisfy investors if the hospital is a for-profit operation. But isn’t a 60-fold increase in the cost of a saline bag a touch extreme?
Oddly enough, that passage appears in an article discussing a new trend in American hospital care of requiring payment up-front (a practice that apparently leaves quite a bit to be desired in the implementation), which would seem to curtail a decent chunk of the problem of nonpaying patients.
I hope I’m not alone in thinking that “universal health care” as a tool to reduce health care costs in the country is only a piece in the puzzle. Some of the wacky billing practices and inefficiencies involved therein have got to introduce a drag on the entire system.