I took a fall in the parking lot of Krogers near my home. Broke my patella, and the left side of my body was badly bruised (I am over 70) the hospital did a cat scan because the side of my face was black bruised and my left eye was swollen shut.....cat scan of my head was 5000 dollars. Just being taken into ER by ambulance was 1000 dollars. The Cat scan cost was a great surprise to me...took about 10 minutes....
CT scan machines cost a few million and require special training to use. While $5k is too high the system is set up to appease the insurance industry.
The insurance industry marks the $5k down to about $400 depending on the policy. Most plans used to pay that.
A couple years ago I got very sick and spent 8 days in intensive care. The bill was $185,000 and it saved my life.
You could go to Canada where the CT scan is cheap but you wait 18 months for it. Thats always an option.
Auto insurance is one of the big contributors to excessive hospital costs. In the ‘no fault states’, the insurers just treat whatever the hospitals send as a book entry and mail checks until the policy limit is reached. A recent example in lower Delaware had a hospital charging almost $80,000 for 18 hours of limited care until the patient was moved elsewhere. It seems the bill was rushed to the insurer before anyone else could get their hands on the auto insurance stash. The insurance company wrote the check with a small discount and that was that. An insurer like Medicare or Aetna would have fought those charges down to less than half that, I’m sure.
This comparative study is the first worthwhile thing I’ve seen the government do to sensibly address the cost of medical care in this country.