(02-26-2025 08:02 PM)maximus Wrote:  

(02-26-2025 06:18 PM)Redbanksdog Wrote:  

(02-26-2025 04:18 PM)b0ndsj0ns Wrote:  

(02-26-2025 04:04 PM)maximus Wrote:  

(02-26-2025 03:52 PM)b0ndsj0ns Wrote:  All scams are purposely confusing and hard to follow.

I'm interested to hear who you think you is doing the scamming

Sent from my SM-S928U using Tapatalk

Pretty much everyone involved with it on every side. A CT scan for example does not cost a hospital more to perform on a self pay patient vs a Medicare patient vs a Medicaid patient vs a private insurance patient. However, what they will try to get compensated for in all 4 of those situations is wildly different. Everyone is trying to scam everyone, and everyone knows it's a complete scam except for the patient.

I hear you about the CT scan. It was a few years ago my brother wanted a CT scan after his gallbladder was removed. He had one done at some place and it only cost him a little over $500.00 cash. Now I had to go to the hospital a little over two years ago. They did a CT scan on me. When I saw the bill I couldn't believe it, they charged about $15,000.00 for that scan. Both scans were from the bottom of the neck to the waist line.
Now someone explain to me the reason for the gap between $500.00 and $15,000.00.

I forgot to mention medicare paid for most or all for the scan for me.

A lot of variables

Type of insurance plan and where deductibles stood at the time, type of CT, outpatient vs admitted, and about 50 others

And that's the problem. The regulatory environment makes things so convoluted it makes more than good guesses...impossible.

Sent from my SM-S928U using Tapatalk

You just said a whole bunch of words just to say it's about who you can get away with charging more to. The type of insurance plan doesn't make it cost the clinic or the hospital more to do the same procedure to the same area, just changes what the clinic will attempt to charge for said procedure. All sides (except patients) want it to be intentionally complicated so they can all grift.

(02-27-2025 11:55 AM)b0ndsj0ns Wrote:  You just said a whole bunch of words just to say it's about who you can get away with charging more to. The type of insurance plan doesn't make it cost the clinic or the hospital more to do the same procedure to the same area, just changes what the clinic will attempt to charge for said procedure. All sides (except patients) want it to be intentionally complicated so they can all grift.

I'll word it in this way...

Patient with insurance, the hospital will collect the money.

Patient without insurance, odds are they will have to write off the debt as people quite often don't pay, but because of the law they cannot actually turn them away from the ER.

Hence, in risk management terms, you charge more for the riskier patients.

(02-26-2025 05:09 PM)GoodOwl Wrote:  

(02-26-2025 03:23 PM)b0ndsj0ns Wrote:  

(02-26-2025 02:47 PM)GoodOwl Wrote:  

(02-26-2025 01:25 PM)b0ndsj0ns Wrote:  That's nice and all, but what are you going to tell the ambulance driver to take me to the next hospital if you don't like the prices displayed?

if you can shop around for taxis, ubers, lyfts and limos, you can shop around for ambulances unless you don't think you have time...it's your choice. Not all ambulance rides are time critical, in fact a sizeable portion are not. Anyway, it should be up to you if you want to shop around.

As far as price transparency, were you aware that foot x-rays can vary from provider to provider from $43 for 3 to $2,000 for just one? Years ago, I shopped around when needing one, against the horror of some of my friends, and got the same service for $43 that some wanted to charge me over $1,000 for. Since I had to wait for the swelling to go down a bit anyway, I got on the phone. Many provider office personnel who answered my calls had NO Idea what their prices were for an X-ray, and worse, most did not even know how to find out what they charged!

Imagine going to an auto repair place and them telling you: "We have no idea what it will cost for your oil change, and you'll have to wait a month or two to find out afterwards. Meantime, it could be anywhere between $35 and $3,000... So sign here that you agree tpay whatever the he77 we say and we'll get started...what a bunch of BS the entire Medical SCAM Industry has been since the mid-1960s. It's time to get rid of the greed and graft and let the medical CONSUMERS--the patients decide what the prices they want to pay are, NOT the "Insurance (read: non-health medical Scam companies) and not what the providers (skilled in medicine, but scammers and frauds in business) or the gub'mint (useless and superfluous) says.

And the biggest area in the economy ripe for massive layoffs and downsizing: Medical "administration" i.e. the most wasteful and useless jobs in Amercia, even including government, and that's really sayin' someting!

Artist: Bananarama and Fun Boy Three
Song: "Really Sayin' Something"

I don't think this is a bad idea, and for routine/non life threatening things having extremely transparent pricing for scans/blood work/if they have to give you oral pain meds/etc would be great. However, deciding on what you need in healthcare ain't like deciding if you need to buy a new consumer product or not, where you can just shop around and if you don't like the price anywhere you can do without. There's a whole bunch of cases where "doing without" equals death. Price transparency could be helpful in the areas where it's more elective what you need, but that's not usually the type of stuff that gives you the send you into bankruptcy type of bills. That's going to be getting cancer, getting into a serious car accident where you have to spend time in the ICU, having a pregnancy complication where you have to deliver early and your baby has to stay in the NICU. Knowing those prices doesn't change the decision you have to make, because there is no decision you are desperate.

I'll agree and disagree here. There is more than one provider for things like cancer, MS, Diabetes, Cerebral Palsy, TB, et cetera.... You can and should shop around for treatments and that includes pricing. It should be up to you to decide what is most important. Now, I'll agree, if you have something acute and immediate like massive hemorrhage, gunshot wound, cut your foot off, then you will have to go to nearest place immediately....same as if your car is overheating due to radiator on a remote highway you won't have much choice to get ti fixed, especially if you're on a trip and your car is loaded with your stuff. The concepts for when it is more or less appropriate to include price at the top of your concerns are quite similar...the lie the Medical Industrial Complex WANTS you to believe is that they are somehow different to every other consumer decision you make, and that of course is complete nonsense (but they spend billions of your taxpayer dollars telling you otherwise to keep their racquet going and pocketing YOUR money for nothing.) People are quite used to discerning which decisions are critical and call for immediate action regardless of price in every other area of life...medical is no different.

It absolutely is different. You could "shop around" for treatments to those things you listed, and yes some are going to be cheaper than others, but you might very well have side effects to the cheapest options. Let's just use diabetes and say you try Metformin which is one of the cheapest drugs on the market for it. You could be allergic to it or maybe you also have kidney issues and you can't stay on it. Well the options that are good for people with renal issues are a hell of a lot more expensive. You got to eventually find one that works for you, and that's not a decision the average person can make on their own and they can't control what will or won't work for their specific body or health situation, forget about price. And it ain't like making a consumer decision on a thing like buying a new car, where there are alternatives even if painful you could make or just do without and make it work. If you don't find a treatment that works for diabetes you will eventually lose your feet, go blind, get renal failure, and die.

(02-27-2025 11:55 AM)b0ndsj0ns Wrote:  

(02-26-2025 08:02 PM)maximus Wrote:  

(02-26-2025 06:18 PM)Redbanksdog Wrote:  

(02-26-2025 04:18 PM)b0ndsj0ns Wrote:  

(02-26-2025 04:04 PM)maximus Wrote:  I'm interested to hear who you think you is doing the scamming

Sent from my SM-S928U using Tapatalk

Pretty much everyone involved with it on every side. A CT scan for example does not cost a hospital more to perform on a self pay patient vs a Medicare patient vs a Medicaid patient vs a private insurance patient. However, what they will try to get compensated for in all 4 of those situations is wildly different. Everyone is trying to scam everyone, and everyone knows it's a complete scam except for the patient.

I hear you about the CT scan. It was a few years ago my brother wanted a CT scan after his gallbladder was removed. He had one done at some place and it only cost him a little over $500.00 cash. Now I had to go to the hospital a little over two years ago. They did a CT scan on me. When I saw the bill I couldn't believe it, they charged about $15,000.00 for that scan. Both scans were from the bottom of the neck to the waist line.
Now someone explain to me the reason for the gap between $500.00 and $15,000.00.

I forgot to mention medicare paid for most or all for the scan for me.

A lot of variables

Type of insurance plan and where deductibles stood at the time, type of CT, outpatient vs admitted, and about 50 others

And that's the problem. The regulatory environment makes things so convoluted it makes more than good guesses...impossible.

Sent from my SM-S928U using Tapatalk

You just said a whole bunch of words just to say it's about who you can get away with charging more to. The type of insurance plan doesn't make it cost the clinic or the hospital more to do the same procedure to the same area, just changes what the clinic will attempt to charge for said procedure. All sides (except patients) want it to be intentionally complicated so they can all grift.

You're incredibly wrong and naive.

Healthcare providers / organizations are in business to make a profit, and everyone in this country should want them to be profitable.

Now take a guess why I just said that?


Sent from my SM-S928U using Tapatalk

(02-27-2025 12:17 PM)b0ndsj0ns Wrote:  

(02-26-2025 05:09 PM)GoodOwl Wrote:  

(02-26-2025 03:23 PM)b0ndsj0ns Wrote:  

(02-26-2025 02:47 PM)GoodOwl Wrote:  

(02-26-2025 01:25 PM)b0ndsj0ns Wrote:  That's nice and all, but what are you going to tell the ambulance driver to take me to the next hospital if you don't like the prices displayed?

if you can shop around for taxis, ubers, lyfts and limos, you can shop around for ambulances unless you don't think you have time...it's your choice. Not all ambulance rides are time critical, in fact a sizeable portion are not. Anyway, it should be up to you if you want to shop around.

As far as price transparency, were you aware that foot x-rays can vary from provider to provider from $43 for 3 to $2,000 for just one? Years ago, I shopped around when needing one, against the horror of some of my friends, and got the same service for $43 that some wanted to charge me over $1,000 for. Since I had to wait for the swelling to go down a bit anyway, I got on the phone. Many provider office personnel who answered my calls had NO Idea what their prices were for an X-ray, and worse, most did not even know how to find out what they charged!

Imagine going to an auto repair place and them telling you: "We have no idea what it will cost for your oil change, and you'll have to wait a month or two to find out afterwards. Meantime, it could be anywhere between $35 and $3,000... So sign here that you agree tpay whatever the he77 we say and we'll get started...what a bunch of BS the entire Medical SCAM Industry has been since the mid-1960s. It's time to get rid of the greed and graft and let the medical CONSUMERS--the patients decide what the prices they want to pay are, NOT the "Insurance (read: non-health medical Scam companies) and not what the providers (skilled in medicine, but scammers and frauds in business) or the gub'mint (useless and superfluous) says.

And the biggest area in the economy ripe for massive layoffs and downsizing: Medical "administration" i.e. the most wasteful and useless jobs in Amercia, even including government, and that's really sayin' someting!

Artist: Bananarama and Fun Boy Three
Song: "Really Sayin' Something"

I don't think this is a bad idea, and for routine/non life threatening things having extremely transparent pricing for scans/blood work/if they have to give you oral pain meds/etc would be great. However, deciding on what you need in healthcare ain't like deciding if you need to buy a new consumer product or not, where you can just shop around and if you don't like the price anywhere you can do without. There's a whole bunch of cases where "doing without" equals death. Price transparency could be helpful in the areas where it's more elective what you need, but that's not usually the type of stuff that gives you the send you into bankruptcy type of bills. That's going to be getting cancer, getting into a serious car accident where you have to spend time in the ICU, having a pregnancy complication where you have to deliver early and your baby has to stay in the NICU. Knowing those prices doesn't change the decision you have to make, because there is no decision you are desperate.

I'll agree and disagree here. There is more than one provider for things like cancer, MS, Diabetes, Cerebral Palsy, TB, et cetera.... You can and should shop around for treatments and that includes pricing. It should be up to you to decide what is most important. Now, I'll agree, if you have something acute and immediate like massive hemorrhage, gunshot wound, cut your foot off, then you will have to go to nearest place immediately....same as if your car is overheating due to radiator on a remote highway you won't have much choice to get ti fixed, especially if you're on a trip and your car is loaded with your stuff. The concepts for when it is more or less appropriate to include price at the top of your concerns are quite similar...the lie the Medical Industrial Complex WANTS you to believe is that they are somehow different to every other consumer decision you make, and that of course is complete nonsense (but they spend billions of your taxpayer dollars telling you otherwise to keep their racquet going and pocketing YOUR money for nothing.) People are quite used to discerning which decisions are critical and call for immediate action regardless of price in every other area of life...medical is no different.

It absolutely is different. You could "shop around" for treatments to those things you listed, and yes some are going to be cheaper than others, but you might very well have side effects to the cheapest options. Let's just use diabetes and say you try Metformin which is one of the cheapest drugs on the market for it. You could be allergic to it or maybe you also have kidney issues and you can't stay on it. Well the options that are good for people with renal issues are a hell of a lot more expensive. You got to eventually find one that works for you, and that's not a decision the average person can make on their own and they can't control what will or won't work for their specific body or health situation, forget about price. And it ain't like making a consumer decision on a thing like buying a new car, where there are alternatives even if painful you could make or just do without and make it work. If you don't find a treatment that works for diabetes you will eventually lose your feet, go blind, get renal failure, and die.

Type 1 or 2?



Sent from my SM-S928U using Tapatalk

(02-27-2025 12:17 PM)maximus Wrote:  

(02-27-2025 11:55 AM)b0ndsj0ns Wrote:  

(02-26-2025 08:02 PM)maximus Wrote:  

(02-26-2025 06:18 PM)Redbanksdog Wrote:  

(02-26-2025 04:18 PM)b0ndsj0ns Wrote:  Pretty much everyone involved with it on every side. A CT scan for example does not cost a hospital more to perform on a self pay patient vs a Medicare patient vs a Medicaid patient vs a private insurance patient. However, what they will try to get compensated for in all 4 of those situations is wildly different. Everyone is trying to scam everyone, and everyone knows it's a complete scam except for the patient.

I hear you about the CT scan. It was a few years ago my brother wanted a CT scan after his gallbladder was removed. He had one done at some place and it only cost him a little over $500.00 cash. Now I had to go to the hospital a little over two years ago. They did a CT scan on me. When I saw the bill I couldn't believe it, they charged about $15,000.00 for that scan. Both scans were from the bottom of the neck to the waist line.
Now someone explain to me the reason for the gap between $500.00 and $15,000.00.

I forgot to mention medicare paid for most or all for the scan for me.

A lot of variables

Type of insurance plan and where deductibles stood at the time, type of CT, outpatient vs admitted, and about 50 others

And that's the problem. The regulatory environment makes things so convoluted it makes more than good guesses...impossible.

Sent from my SM-S928U using Tapatalk

You just said a whole bunch of words just to say it's about who you can get away with charging more to. The type of insurance plan doesn't make it cost the clinic or the hospital more to do the same procedure to the same area, just changes what the clinic will attempt to charge for said procedure. All sides (except patients) want it to be intentionally complicated so they can all grift.

You're incredibly wrong and naive.

Healthcare providers / organizations are in business to make a profit, and everyone in this country should want them to be profitable.

Now take a guess why I just said that?


Sent from my SM-S928U using Tapatalk

No, as currently constructed they are in business to make ever expanding profit margins, not just make a steady consistent profit. They have to meet earning projections and EBIDTA forecasts that every year will demand they become more and more and more profitable. I've worked in this industry, I've been in these forecast meetings, I've watched our publicly traded parent company put demands on us that both we and they knew we couldn't meet after having back to back years where we doubled net revenue and EBIDTA. We then matched what was our greatest year in history, were comically profitable, but because we didn't meet the completely known unrealistic forecast layoffs were forced on us. There is a massive difference in being steadily profitable vs the forever demand to be more and more profitable. You are the one who's naive to think it's just about "making a profit."

(02-27-2025 12:50 PM)b0ndsj0ns Wrote:  

(02-27-2025 12:17 PM)maximus Wrote:  

(02-27-2025 11:55 AM)b0ndsj0ns Wrote:  

(02-26-2025 08:02 PM)maximus Wrote:  

(02-26-2025 06:18 PM)Redbanksdog Wrote:  I hear you about the CT scan. It was a few years ago my brother wanted a CT scan after his gallbladder was removed. He had one done at some place and it only cost him a little over $500.00 cash. Now I had to go to the hospital a little over two years ago. They did a CT scan on me. When I saw the bill I couldn't believe it, they charged about $15,000.00 for that scan. Both scans were from the bottom of the neck to the waist line.
Now someone explain to me the reason for the gap between $500.00 and $15,000.00.

I forgot to mention medicare paid for most or all for the scan for me.

A lot of variables

Type of insurance plan and where deductibles stood at the time, type of CT, outpatient vs admitted, and about 50 others

And that's the problem. The regulatory environment makes things so convoluted it makes more than good guesses...impossible.

Sent from my SM-S928U using Tapatalk

You just said a whole bunch of words just to say it's about who you can get away with charging more to. The type of insurance plan doesn't make it cost the clinic or the hospital more to do the same procedure to the same area, just changes what the clinic will attempt to charge for said procedure. All sides (except patients) want it to be intentionally complicated so they can all grift.

You're incredibly wrong and naive.

Healthcare providers / organizations are in business to make a profit, and everyone in this country should want them to be profitable.

Now take a guess why I just said that?


Sent from my SM-S928U using Tapatalk

No, as currently constructed they are in business to make ever expanding profit margins, not just make a steady consistent profit. They have to meet earning projections and EBIDTA forecasts that every year will demand they become more and more and more profitable. I've worked in this industry, I've been in these forecast meetings, I've watched our publicly traded parent company put demands on us that both we and they knew we couldn't meet after having back to back years where we doubled net revenue and EBIDTA. We then matched what was our greatest year in history, were comically profitable, but because we didn't meet the completely known unrealistic forecast layoffs were forced on us. There is a massive difference in being steadily profitable vs the forever demand to be more and more profitable. You are the one who's naive to think it's just about "making a profit."

You didn't answer my question...

and may I ask what industry you are referring to and if it's healthcare, what part of the healthcare industry are referring to that you work in.



Sent from my SM-S928U using Tapatalk

(02-27-2025 01:06 PM)maximus Wrote:  

(02-27-2025 12:50 PM)b0ndsj0ns Wrote:  

(02-27-2025 12:17 PM)maximus Wrote:  

(02-27-2025 11:55 AM)b0ndsj0ns Wrote:  

(02-26-2025 08:02 PM)maximus Wrote:  A lot of variables

Type of insurance plan and where deductibles stood at the time, type of CT, outpatient vs admitted, and about 50 others

And that's the problem. The regulatory environment makes things so convoluted it makes more than good guesses...impossible.

Sent from my SM-S928U using Tapatalk

You just said a whole bunch of words just to say it's about who you can get away with charging more to. The type of insurance plan doesn't make it cost the clinic or the hospital more to do the same procedure to the same area, just changes what the clinic will attempt to charge for said procedure. All sides (except patients) want it to be intentionally complicated so they can all grift.

You're incredibly wrong and naive.

Healthcare providers / organizations are in business to make a profit, and everyone in this country should want them to be profitable.

Now take a guess why I just said that?


Sent from my SM-S928U using Tapatalk

No, as currently constructed they are in business to make ever expanding profit margins, not just make a steady consistent profit. They have to meet earning projections and EBIDTA forecasts that every year will demand they become more and more and more profitable. I've worked in this industry, I've been in these forecast meetings, I've watched our publicly traded parent company put demands on us that both we and they knew we couldn't meet after having back to back years where we doubled net revenue and EBIDTA. We then matched what was our greatest year in history, were comically profitable, but because we didn't meet the completely known unrealistic forecast layoffs were forced on us. There is a massive difference in being steadily profitable vs the forever demand to be more and more profitable. You are the one who's naive to think it's just about "making a profit."

You didn't answer my question...

and may I ask what industry you are referring to and if it's healthcare, what part of the healthcare industry are referring to that you work in.



Sent from my SM-S928U using Tapatalk

Your question was stupid Batman. DURRR they need to make some level of profit so they can stay in business, thanks genius for the econ lesson.

I am in the clinical research side of the healthcare industry, have spent time working for CRO's and time working for a company that managed the clinical trials themselves.

(02-26-2025 01:24 PM)mlb Wrote:  Hospitals already do. Have had to for years.

Thats what I thought. Its been a law for years. That said---reasonable compliance does not seem all that obvious. As many have pointed out, lots of indications out there that hospitals charging 2 different prices for those covered by insurance and those without insurance (cash self paying customers) often refuse to reveal both pricing options. I know it seems like that should never matter---but the reality is more times than one might think, it is actually cheaper to simply pay cash than to obtain the same service under an insurance policy with high deductibles (the hospital pricing difference can be that substantial).

(02-27-2025 03:01 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  

(02-26-2025 01:24 PM)mlb Wrote:  Hospitals already do. Have had to for years.

Thats what I thought. Its been a law for years. That said---reasonable compliance does not seem all that obvious. As many have pointed out, lots of indications out there that hospitals charging 2 different prices for those covered by insurance and those without insurance (cash self paying customers) often refuse to reveal both pricing options. I know it seems like that should never matter---but the reality is more times than one might think, it is actually cheaper to simply pay cash than to obtain the same service under an insurance policy with high deductibles (the hospital pricing difference can be that substantial).

I look at this web site to get some kind of idea on cost. I've had it for 3 or 4 years I think.
https://turquoise.health/