She was billed $809 for a boot for her broken foot. Amazon charges $80

[Floyd R. Turbo]

Stephanie Noonan Drachkovitch recently broke her foot while horseback riding. She got treated at a UCLA-affiliated orthopedic facility in Thousand Oaks and has no complaints about the quality of care.

“My doctors were fantastic,” Drachkovitch told me. “This isn’t about them.”

What this is about, as you’ve probably already guessed, is her subsequent bill for medical care — yet another example of how our healthcare system routinely rips people off with inflated, nonsensical charges.

In Drachkovitch’s case, what caught her attention was the bill’s $809 charge for the plastic walking boot that was placed on her foot after the injury.

https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2021-11-16/column-crazy-healthcare-bills

[jimfields33]

1. Is this after the insurance kicked in?

That is ridiculous. I get bills like that and it’s always “this is not a bill”. When the actual bill comes, reality has set in.

[lark]

2. Insurance often won't cover or just pays a fraction of the price for medical equipment.

Even HMO's do this, although I think it is ultra sneaky. It happened to me, only it was for a "bone healing" device. I was told it would be zero cost, HA. I got a bill for $900 - after insurance paid, AND I had a Medicare HMO. I thought it was wrong, called to return the device, was told no - there's an error, so kept it. Guess what, the next month it was too late to return it and they said the $900 charge was valid. I refused to pay and will NOT pay these extortionate charges. I pay my legitimate bills and always have but this time they pissed me off, pushing me so hard when it was my first day home (alone), I was on major drugs from major surgery and they totally lied to me and the guy wouldn't leave with the device.

[llashram]

3. of course

greed drives the predators in our economic system. Always has.

[dalton99a]

4. The worst, fucked up, barbaric health "care" system among civilized nations

[Celerity]

8. +1, it is the world's largest wealth extraction and transfer scheme nt

[area51]

16. +1 n/t

[leftstreet]

10. +1

[NowISeetheLight]

5. I worked in healthcare finance...

… for fifteen years until I had to retire last year. I started in billing, then moved to coding, and ended up as a revenue cycle department manager for a large health system. I agree the healthcare system is a disaster. In the hospital we had the charge master with prices (all inflated). Insurance paid a fraction of the charges while people with no insurance were offered a “discount” of 25% which meant they still paid way more than the insured. Medicare and Medicaid often didn’t cover the cost of care to the hospital. Probably half the years I worked the hospitals I worked for lost money. If we made 2% profit it was a good year. My last year working we had total revenue of over $4b dollars, were in the red, had layoffs, and gave away over $100m in charity care. We wrote off a couple $100m more to bad debt.

What drives the cost are a couple things. First, building hospitals like resorts, pianos in the lobby, healing gardens, fancy architecture, stuff like that. The second (and bigger) problem is material costs. A knee joint from Stryker costs a hospital twice as much in the US as Canada. We all know about drug costs and how expensive they are. An AICD from Medtronic is way more expensive for a US hospital than an EU one. American device manufacturers drive the costs as they are profit oriented.

[Act_of_Reparation]

11. People don't seem to comprehend how much it costs to provision health care.

I work in pediatrics. We are constantly operating at a loss, not because of our amenities but because insurance simply doesn't reimburse enough to cover the basic costs of our services. The only reason we're able to do what we do is because other specialties associated with our organization are profitable.

Patients don't see this, though. They take a look at their bills and assume, because we've issued them, that we're a bunch of greedy price gougers. It just isn't the case.

[LiberalFighter]

13. That last part. No reason for hospital resorts.

They have too much space that is not functional.

[leftstreet]

15. Was that 2% profit AFTER exec compensation, consolidations?

Building costs, ventures, etc

[NowISeetheLight]

17. Yes

The CEO makes around $1.5m per the 2020 non-profit filing. They are unique in that the “company” is actually a hybrid merger of two large systems. Both of the companies file their own tax return while the parent company has their own too. The parent company only lists 15 employees and “revenue” of around $54m and expenses of $90m. Executive compensation for the 15 is about $9.5m for the year (10% of the budget). The CEO makes around $1.5m and there are three others over $1m a year (CFO, Chief Clinical Officer MD, etc). The others make $400k-$700k each. The parent company holds the assets so there are a couple billion in assets and liabilities. Given the education, experience, and responsibility for running a multi-billion dollar healthcare company that is the states largest employer, the pay isn’t excessive. If the CEO made $10m a year I’d have a different opinion.

Even so there have been some scandalous events in recent years. About six years ago (before the merger) the system paid $2.5m in bonuses to top executives. A couple months later they announced a $15m deficit for the year and laid off 400 employees. They were justifiably crucified in the media.

[NowISeetheLight]

18. This is excessive....

… Article about HCA, one of the biggest US for profit hospital corporations. It says the CEO makes $26m a year.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/08/business/hospitals-bailouts-ceo-pay.html

The article outlines examples of ridiculous executive pay at some hospital systems while laying off employees and getting government bailout cash.

[ratchiweenie]

6. So always check Amazon before accepting any medical product or equipment from

your healthcare employer. I know people who have their spouse brings them aspirin, tylenol, etc. when they go into the hospital rather than accept the $10 per pill.

[catsudon]

7. amazon is not suppose to sell any medical devices

but then again i'm eyeing a cpap machine on there

[JI7]

9. Do we know it's the exact same thing ? Amazon has a lot of cheap

fake versions of things.

It's still probably too expensive like health care here is .

[hunter]

12. People in the U.S.A. should see how much eyeglasses cost in some nations...

... they'd be shocked.

In many places an eye exam and glasses doesn't cost the average working person a day's wages.

[sarcasmo]

14. Purchased a walking boot, finger brace and few other medical related items on Amazon.

Over the years Amazon has saved me thousands.