M***Cost of Hospital Care in Michigan; Numbers Not Necessary Relevant for Consumers

Hospitals are now being required to reveal their master price lists but these data may not be of much help to consumers (see:Hospitals must post prices online, but they may be more confusing than helpful). That's because the price lists displayed recently on the basis of a federal requirement, called chargemasters, are massive compendiums of the prices set by each hospital for every service or drug that a patient might encounter. However, I did find some of the prices published for a set of hospitals in Michigan by diagnosis were interesting in a general way to assess the cost of healthcare (see:Hospital price lists revealed: The cost of care at 9 Michigan medical centers). Below is an excerpt from this latter article:....[W]hile a new federal mandate that took effect Jan. 1 requires hospitals to reveal their once-secret master price lists of every service or procedure they provide,...[but an expert of the topic] warned that patients should view the prices only as"context-setting" starting points."The hospital's charges are not very relevant to the patient, because the patient bill can be significantly discounted, either by the health plan, which is what health plans have been doing for 50 years, or even in some situations where patients have to self-pay, they can negotiate by themselves"....Below, you'll find...[examples] of base and average prices for common hospital procedures provided by hospitals all over Michigan....:Normal newborn birth:...
Source: Lab Soft News - Category: Laboratory Medicine Authors: Tags: Cost of Healthcare Healthcare Business Healthcare Delivery Healthcare Insurance Hospital Financial Medical Consumerism Public Health Quality of Care Source Type: blogs