Health Care / Medicine

Bar Tabs: Getting Hit With A Stiff Bill After Surgery Is A Hard Drink To Swallow

With healthcare this expensive, you get why people self-medicate.

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Yeah, that aspirin is going to cost you $72.

Me personally? I like to know how much things cost before I buy ’em. I had a conversation yesterday with a friend about a bar visit that left a bad taste in their mouth. The bartender asked my friend what they wanted and the friend replied something along the lines of “I don’t know, you’re the expert. Make me something nice.” And that was the problem. Don’t get me wrong, the drinks were delicious — they were like drinking art. The bitters came at the end when they found out that the bartender was using the stuff a little closer to the top of the shelf than they were expecting. It ruined their night! See, that’s the important thing about transparency. When done right, it does more than save people money — it prevents you from being so blindsided it ruins an otherwise great experience. This is triply so for medical procedures. Few things are worse than getting a minor surgery on your hand and finding out it cost you an arm and a leg! That’s presumably why Denver put a law in place to make sure that hospitals tell their customers how much stuff will cost. Unfortunately, at least 31 hospitals have been damn near presidential in their skirting of the rule of law.

The consumer group [Patient Rights Advocate] released a new report showing that nearly 20 months after a law requiring hospitals to post their real prices online went into effect, a large majority of hospitals continue to hide the cost of care from consumers, including several from Colorado.

“The hospitals have put the brakes on complying with this law and every day that a hospital doesn’t show its actual prices in advance of care, it harms patients because 64% of patients delay care for fear of financial ruin,” Cynthia Fisher, founder and chairwoman of PRA, said.

Fisher said most hospitals are posting prices but in a format that’s often fuzzy and misleading about a procedure’s true cost, making the information useless for consumers.

“By keeping patients in the dark, hospitals continue to charge whatever they want,” Fisher said. “Why wouldn’t any American choose to shop and get a $300 MRI versus paying $3,000?”

I know that civil procedure would have you believe that forum shopping is a big no-no, but when it comes to medical procedures, you’re out of your mind if you think I’m not switching venues to a hospital that can give me the same level of care at a 10th of the price! I’m a big fan of transparency and accountability in medicine; the fewer Martin Shkrelis jacking up the price of medicine from ~$13 to ~$750 overnight, the better. I’m not one to go out of my way to cape for billionaires, but the black-box model of medicine and healthcare is worlds apart from what enforcing medical transparency could be — and I think Mark Cuban has given an example of what being forthright about healthcare costs could look like.

The big costs people think of are a house, a car, whatever special food your dog needs because they have an immune system as tough as wet newspaper… oh, and kids. Folks still have those, right? But life tends to unfold in a way that points out the naivete of our planning — a roof collapses, maybe you do too. Those are the times when the cost of living stops being cliché and becomes concrete. While it is true that doctors have an obligation to take care of their patients, hospitals have earned a reputation for taking advantage of patients’ wallets. At the moment, transparency laws and fines appear to be effective ways to get them to fall in line; two hospitals in Georgia became compliant and posted the prices of their procedures after being sued a cool million each. Of the 32 hospitals surveyed in Colorado, Middle Park Health Kremmling was the only one that actually posted its prices. Congratulations! Doing what you’re supposed to do can be its own reward! The other 31 get the wall of shame.

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  • Arkansas Valley Regional Medical Center
  • Avista Adventist Hospital
  • Castle Rock Adventist Hospital
  • Centennial Hospital
  • Children’s Hospital Colorado
  • Children’s Hospital Colorado – Colorado Springs
  • Good Samaritan Medical Center
  • Haxtun Hospital
  • Heart of the Rockies Regional Medical Center
  • Kiowa County Hospital District
  • Kit Carson County Memorial Hospital
  • Littleton Adventist Hospital
  • McKee Medical Center
  • North Suburban Medical Center
  • Parker Adventist Hospital
  • Platte Valley Medical Center
  • Porter Adventist Hospital
  • Presbyterian/St. Luke’s Medical Center
  • Rangely District Hospital
  • Rose Medical Center
  • SCL Health St. Joseph Hospital
  • Sedgwick County Health Center
  • Sky Ridge Medical Center
  • Spalding Rehabilitation Hospital
  • St. Francis Medical Center
  • Swedish Medical Center
  • Swedish Southwest ER
  • The Medical Center of Aurora
  • UCHealth Highlands Ranch Hospital
  • University of Colorado Hospital
  • Vibra Hospital of Denver

Stay healthy and economical out here, my friends. And hospitals, you really should follow laws that apply to you. What, are your in-house counsel just not doing their jobs? If so, hit my line at cwilliams@abovethelaw.com. I’d love to do nothing in their place.

Study: 31 Colorado hospitals not complying with price transparency law [KDVR]

* In the interests of transparency, this was not a paid advertisement for CostPlusDrugs. I think more people should know about it, along with Good RX, and where better to spread the info than on my every once in a while money-minded column? Check out some of the prior Bar Tabs entries if you have the time to — you just might save a few bucks!

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Chris Williams became a social media manager and assistant editor for Above the Law in June 2021. Prior to joining the staff, he moonlighted as a minor Memelord™ in the Facebook group Law School Memes for Edgy T14s.  He endured Missouri long enough to graduate from Washington University in St. Louis School of Law. He is a former boatbuilder who cannot swim, a published author on critical race theory, philosophy, and humor, and has a love for cycling that occasionally annoys his peers. You can reach him by email at cwilliams@abovethelaw.com and by tweet at @WritesForRent.

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