Less than 5 minute arthroscopic surgery....guess the price$$

[madmmac]

Torn meniscus in my knee, finally got it cleaned out. Looked at he clock prior to going under and waking up in the recovery room. Total time: 14 minutes. Watched my DVD of the surgery later that afternoon. Total: 4:48 minutes.


And the Bill:

































Room/facilities: $4,323
Dr: $2, 280
Anesthesiologist: $440

Total: $7,043

Thank God for insurance, but the knee feels great.

[pwd72s]

If there was no medical insurance, the price would be at least half...

[tevake]

Not necessarily true that there is a reduced rate if paying out of pocket. I have gone in to talk with the finance office at our local hospital to let them know that I was paying the bill with cash right then and there, so hoped for a better cost for no wait or paperwork for them. No dice they still expected the same retail price. I was POed cause you know that a bill sent to insurance costs them plenty in admin. costs then they collect 70cents on the dollar at best. WTF!

Glad that your knee is feeling better!

[Zeke]

The game played in medical billing is so convoluted that it is laughable.

Except no one is laughing.

[RWebb]

besides the above, you are paying for the training, the capital equip. and other costs, and the development

you are not really paying for the research to develop the technique per se - that is nearly free, since the researchers work for almost nothing at a med. school somewhere

[Red Baron]

Nice buy!

Will be double that under Obamacare...

[gr8fl4porsche]

Originally Posted by tevake

Not necessarily true that there is a reduced rate if paying out of pocket.

Same issue here. I was paying a med bill for an employee to keep the incident away from work comp and offered to pay immediately as long as I received a similar rate as the insurance co. They said 'no'.

So I tore up the bills for a few months until the collectors called and then offered cash for a likely even lessor amount which they accepted. What a way to do business.

[Moses]

Only $7000 ???

Why the discount? Looks like maybe you're a friend of the anesthesiologist.

[RWebb]

funny - but I can top that joke...

Looks like his wife is a "friend" of the anesthesiologist.

[sammyg2]

Shoulda claimed to be an "undocumented" visitor, you coulda got it done fer free

[sammyg2]

Originally Posted by RWebb

funny - but I can top that joke...

Looks like his wife is a "friend" of the anesthesiologist.

Naw, if she was he never woulda woke up!

[Moses]

Originally Posted by madmmac

Anesthesiologist: $440

You gotta add a zero. Seriously.

An anesthesiologist won't walk in the room for $440.

[tevake]

OH yea that is only the first round of bills, brace yourself for more to follow in a month or two.

[Tobra]

Those are what was billed or what was paid?

[Bill Douglas]

Originally Posted by Moses

You gotta add a zero. Seriously.

An anesthesiologist won't walk in the room for $440.

I hear Conrad Murray has some spare time on his hands, and he has considerable experiance with anesthasist drugs.

[Rick Lee]

Originally Posted by gr8fl4porsche

Same issue here. I was paying a med bill for an employee to keep the incident away from work comp and offered to pay immediately as long as I received a similar rate as the insurance co. They said 'no'.

So I tore up the bills for a few months until the collectors called and then offered cash for a likely even lessor amount which they accepted. What a way to do business.

My wife did this as a poor college student and it worked. Though her credit report was recently dinged for an outstanding $160 bill from that event six yrs. later, which she had never heard about until we started looking at refinancing the house.

[DanielDudley]

Being able to walk without pain,

Priceless.

[notmytarga]

Anesthesia bill is where it should be.
Knee surgery - 3 "base" units - that's the minimum base units, more complex cases have higher base units - carotid artery = 10, Abdominal cases 6-7 etc.
maybe 30 minutes = 2 time units
Total billed units =5
Rate / unit - $80-150 depending on locality and greed. Average is $100-110

So in this case $440/5 = $88/unit - hey maybe this is discounted!

But at 1 time unit, 4 total, it is $110/unit, a likely situation - I'm surprised that they could do all the anesthesia in <20 min. Perhaps bouncing between two rooms such as for cataracts.
The painful part is that Medicare and MediCal pay $50-70 for the same thing.

And note that the facility gets the biggest payment - paying the nurses, equipment, supplies etc.

Because of the way anesthesia is billed with base and time units, doing four 6 base unit cataracts covered by medicare is better than just about any other work assignment.

[Noah930]

Originally Posted by Moses

You gotta add a zero. Seriously.

An anesthesiologist won't walk in the room for $440.

Agree in spirit, though I understand notmytarga's explanation of anesthestic billing. The anesthesiologist assumed the greatest risk out of all three parties...and came away with the least reimbursement of the bunch.

[mikester]

I think what you were paying for was all that came before the 5 minutes you were on deck.