As a full time health care professional working in and owning a private practice, it has been my mission from day one to provide my clients and patients an evidence based product that meets their needs and provides them a resource for monitoring their health throughout their life span. If you call our office, I will be happy to tell you what our costs are for an initial evaluation, for any follow up visits, and can even tell you how much each procedure code will cost you! If you do not have insurance I will also be happy to provide you a discounted rate for cash in hand today in order to keep your bill current.
But why do others in healthcare find it so hard to do this? Is it because they do not want you to know? Or is because they don't think you have the right to know since your insurance is paying? Go to a restaurant, their menu has prices, or at least they will tell you if you ask. That way you know not to order the lobster at "Market Price" even if you are hungry for lobster (a mistake I have made once before and have never lived down). If people started asking questions I am sure we would see that healthcare, is now like any other business.
Administrators who want to run their practice or hospital system like a business need to start owning up to the idea that their patients are like any other customers and should not be left in the dark about what it costs to receive their care. For instance if most people knew going into the hospital system that their procedure would result in a "facility fee" and a "physician fee" and often times a third fee for "anesthesiology" to put you under, many would shop around at a few different facilities to see how much it was going to cost them out of pocket. Unfortunately all too often it is not until the bill is presented after the services are rendered that you are now "at the mercy" of the very people who said they were going to "take care of you" in the first place. All too often patients believe that if the provider is in network with their insurance that all providers recieve the same rate of payment. That is not correct and often times it is the private practices and independent offices who receive less payment and provide much more personalized care. My payment from an insurance company is about 2/3 of what our local hospitals get paid to provide the same service. And I use same very loosely since similar would be more descriptive since we do not use assistants or aides to provide treatment.
In healthcare, today more than ever, buyer beware and ask how much it will cost you prior to getting any treatment. Feel free to call around and if a facility can not tell you how much it will cost you, keep calling until you find one who can!
Yes I agree that health care in private practice delivers intimate care to its patient. They treat patients as a family as if they are taking care of a father or a mother. Yes you are right that a patient should be made aware and explain to them thoroughly about a procedure or treatment they would like to avail and how much it will cost them to prepare them for the amount needed.
Posted by: Christopher Hinn | February 05, 2011 at 11:14 PM