Maybe someday, the cost of medical procedures won't be such a mystery

Good luck figuring out how much that knee surgery might set you back. But with healthcare consumers starting to ask more questions about what they're actually getting for their medical money, and trying to predict how much they might have to spend, that might be changing.

As Los Angeles TImes reporter Duke Helfand writes in the article "Healthcare Providers Experiment With Lump-Sum Pricing":

"Wildly different prices for the same medical procedures, sometimes in the same towns, are prompting doctors and hospitals across the nation to experiment with new ways to cut unpredictable healthcare spending that often leaves consumers bewildered and financially ruined.

In one closely watched test beginning in August, several of California's best-known healthcare providers — including Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, the UCLA Health System and Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian in Newport Beach — will begin charging lump-sum fees for hip and knee replacements." Read full story.

Here's Time magazine columnist Barbara Kiviat lamenting the current status quo, "Can price shopping improve healthcare?" 

"I recently went to a doctor and asked how much my office visit and X-ray would cost. Staffers told me that they didn't know and, since I have insurance, I shouldn't care. I should care, though. In fact, I do." Read full column.

It would seem that we all should.  

-- Tami Dennis

Comments

[Mark Clapp, MD]

Incomplete response last time. Pushed the wrong button on computer.

I am practicing rural FP from Tennessee and deal with this often with my patients. Uninsured patients even more than insured patients really need to know the price before surgery. Very few hospitals really give a fair and upfront price before procedures are done. I have started a company, Samaritan Diagnostics, that attempts to provide uninsured patients with one price for many tests. Also, it is usually a price between what commercial insurance and Medicare pays for this care. This is what is needed to lower costs and create a consumer healthcare economy. If we know the price and in my opinion feel the burden of the price, we can make real decision about what we really need and want to have done to our bodies.