I can't seem to find a price for this thing (clavicle repair kit) on line, but I suspect it's rather pricy.
Posted on 07/24/2017 6:05:17 AM PDT by afraidfortherepublic
The charges started racking up the moment Annette Johnson arrived at Mount Sinai Hospital with a gunshot wound to her left forearm.
Doctors sliced open Johnson's arm and installed a $500 metal plate to shore up her shattered ulna, securing it with numerous bone screws that cost $246 apiece. There were morphine drips to quell pain, tetanus shots to prevent infection, blood screens and anesthesia.
Two years earlier in a different part of the city, Leo Leyva arrived at a North Side hospital with a gunshot wound to his back. His last memory before going under anesthesia was a nurse telling him they were going to take good care of him and to count up to 10.
As the 18-year-old drifted off, the emergency room team at Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Center went to work to save his life, starting IV lines and X-raying his chest and abdomen before performing an emergency surgery to remove the bullet and repair the damage.
For both Johnson and Leyva, just two of the thousands of gunshot victims in Chicago every year, the first hours and days of their hospital treatment were only the start of what would be costly recoveries that continue to this day.
Still, the bills for their initial treatment were staggering. In his first 35 minutes at the hospital, Leyva had racked up $21,521 in charges, and by the time he was released three weeks later the bill totaled more than $157,000. For Johnson, who spent barely 24 hours at Mount Sinai, the hospital charges approached $27,000.
(Excerpt) Read more at chicagotribune.com ...
And I promise you that they do. The whole system is horribly managed as well. BCBS too 10 months to issue a statement for lab work and an office visit last August. Of course they covered nothing since my deductible is $7500 a year. I wonder if the medicos are trying to get to that deductible in one office visit?
There has to be a lot of ripoff going on, back in the fifties broken bones were common, on the school yard and off. I was fortunate not to break any but many of my classmates had breaks and simply had their break set and a cast made at the doctor’s office. I never heard stories about insurmountable bills and we would not hear it now had the government kept its “experts” out of medicine.
$21,000 in 35 minutes to save a persons life seems low...
***
I was thinking something similar.
And the story describes all of these procedures as though we are talking about something as simple as assembling the ingredients and then whipping up an omelette, something anyone can do with some inexpensive ingredients and equipment that has not been produced through exacting standards.
Chicago
Year to Date
Shot & Killed: 369
Shot & Wounded: 1741
Total Shot: 2110
Total Homicides: 396
heyjackass.com
The hospitals have to publish not just their charges as billed, but also the actual amounts paid. Insurers negotiate discounts, and Medicare and Medicaid have set charges they pay. People who pay cash due to lack of insurance pay the most, which is to say that the poorest usually pay the most. The quickest reform would be to require hospitals to publish all their charges and payments and to charge cash customers no more than the Medicare or Medicaid payment rate, whichever is lowest.
“Why is it not criminal to sell screws for $242 each? “
They are made of Unobtainium, doncha know! Plus before they are used, they have to be blessed by the “rabbi’s” down at the USDA, “certified to be Halal” by the CDC, and get a “stamp of approval” from the VA for use on veterans! You see, the medical profession, knows better than the Air Force how to make “$150 hammers.”
Here you have screws that you get “screwed” using.
“In our world of infinite wants but finite resources, there are only two ways to allocate any good or service: either through prices and the choices of millions of individuals, or through central government planning and political discretion. This choice is inexorable. Stripped of its romantic illusions, ObamaCare is really about who commands the country’s medical resources. . . .”
J. Regos /WSJ
Sadly gone.
I don’t think I’ve seen anyone break a bone in the last ten years that didn’t have titanium rods surgically inserted and numerous procedures stretching out months.
I also don’t know many women that have given birth in the last 10 years without a C Section performed either.
They probably see more GSWs than the MDs in Afghanistan.
Because each screw has to be inspected by a lawyer for five minutes.
Blue Cross and Blue Shield are a major part of the cost problem.
Their reimbursement is offered under UCR, “Usual, Customary and Reasonable.”
In other words, they will pay the highest rate and allow other doctors to move their fees up to match without pushback.
Skilled surgeons and skilled nurses and operating rooms and sterile procedures and medicines and an anesthesiologist......
Can’t imagine why that costs money
Oh and I forgot....dozens of Medicaid patients that one foots the bill for
They charge those prices because they have to cover the cost of Medicaid patients
You can negotiate some but it won’t drop 70%
I can't seem to find a price for this thing (clavicle repair kit) on line, but I suspect it's rather pricy.
They are titanium for starters plus they have to be sterile packed and exactly to spec
The human body can’t use some off the shelf screw from OSH
That isn’t true, and yes it will.
I can show you my bill.
They charge those prices because the hospital admin needs her multi-million dollar salary.
Well hotshot the types of medical treatment these folks received is pretty much indispensable.
You do not have a clue. In fact infection from gun shot wounds would be life threatening...so would loss of blood
The things you cite are from ignorance. Large portion of charges are do to hospitals covering Medicaid patients for whom they are paid a pittance
Its like an urban M*A*S*H* unit.
The greed of lawyers, insurance companies and their lobby, Democrats and Republicans. ..in that order. There is nothing free market or sane about health care here.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.