In a hospital you'll likely be seen by a variety of providers some, or even many of whom are not in your network. You insurer will pay some amount out and then the provider will bill you for the rest...which can be huge. This bill is unrelated to your insurance and is unrelated to any out of pocket maximum. That maximum only relates to copays etc as part of your insurance.
Have you lived in the UK? I personally haven't encountered anyone who has had that issue. Most people primarily use the NHS and private health insurance is provided only occasionally as an employee benefit (often by American companies). That's nice for perhaps getting faster treatment for minor issues and maybe getting a nicer room but generally not required.
I'm sure that the 1% have other arrangements but that's another thing altogether.
If you get private insurance you pay extra to cover inner London hospitals unless you live there.
I haven’t used the NHS for the 6 years that I’ve lived here tried it once when I was looking for some physiotherapy for my knee got told by the GP that it will take 3 months called AXA which was then my provider and got an approval for 3 sessions which was then extended to 12 the same week.
I don’t even book GP appointments via the normal NHS route any more all of the GPs are technically private anyhow they just accept NHS patients and getting a booking via private health care is just that much more convenient since they see you within 24 hours and evening appointments are much more available.
> If you get private insurance you pay extra to cover inner London hospitals unless you live there.
That's kind of the opposite of what I was saying anyway. It's fair enough if you are making a decision to go to a more expensive hospital for your own reasons.
Yeah, private healthcare in the UK is convenient but far from essential. Physiotherapy was actually exactly what came to mind, I believe it's one of those parts which are always chronically under-resourced.
It’s also the fact that you can’t register with more than one GP so if you don’t live within say 30min of your work going to doctor appointments is a day off essentially not to mention that if you don’t pretend to be dying when you call them they’ll tell you to get some rest and call again in 3 days.
If you go to A&E sure NHS is good enough, but for preventative care and general appointments however it’s pretty poor same goes for any kind of specialist care unless you are getting it at the hospital.
Don’t get me wrong universal healthcare is important single payer universal isn’t, and the NHS’s trust structure is really poor so if you live in an area where the trust is literarily bankrupt the level of care you get is piss poor at best.
I think the biggest mistake the Brits did is to prevent the NHS from providing premium services at a cost like better rooms or cosmetic surgery.
The best healthcare systems in the world are those in which the healthcare providers are non-profit, are required to maintain a specific subset of services defined by the government, aren’t allowed to deny service but are allowed to make money on the side with things that aren’t covered by the government.
That extra money is key because as non-profits the only thing they can do with it is to reinvest it in either their staff or their services there are no shareholders to give dividends too.
This is something the NHS lacks I would much rather pay the NHS the same money I pay to Bupa and get the same service as I can get now knowing that some of that money is going to go into improving the NHS as a whole.
The NHS's trust structure is more about forcing a market into somewhere it has no place than about healthcare outcomes.
When we once elected to go private to queue jump we got to see an NHS consultant privately, in an NHS hospital, and all follow on treatment was on the NHS. So it was a simple case of a few hundred pounds for private scan and consultation.
Most hospitals and maternity units have private rooms as an option. As far as I know they're not restricted or limited in any way, unless it's changed since our experiences. We've not needed a hospital for a while.
If I see an NHS consultant privately they get a little extra personal income. So if I took a private room where does the profit go in the current system? Treasury?
Number two for sure. You are almost guaranteed to be seen by an out-of-network provider. It does not matter if you go to an in-network hospital/ER, the providers go out of their way to work a couple hundred miles from home just to bring in the big OON prices. Out of three visits to in-network ERs (in two different states) in the last seven years, how many do you think resulted in crazy charges from OON providers? If you said anything other than all of them you must not be from the states. It is basically impossible not to get fleeced by "health care" in the US.
I’ve been to the ER twice in the last 2 years. Once at the hospital blocks from my house & once while traveling for work 800 miles away. In neither case did I get charged out of network charges.
In fact in the 25 years I’ve paid for mine or my families health care I’ve never seen what you describe over lots of ER visits.
There are lots of things wrong with the US health system, providers systematically trying to get out of network fees isn’t one of them.
Not what kasey_junk said at all. It was responding to someone who said:
> It is basically impossible not to get fleeced by "health care" in the US.
The experience is evidence against this very strong statement. You have uncharitably decided it was making an equally strong statement in the opposite direction.
What’s with the ‘out-of-network’ thing that gets pulled out regularly? Is healthcare really that much more expensive to an insurer if it’s done at one site or another? Sure, they’d prefer it was done in-house so that the ticket can be clipped multiple times, but it’s clearly just made up numbers that are produced currently.
It's not that it's more expensive at one place or another for the most part. When you go in-network you are seeing providers that your insurance has a contract with. This contract includes agreed amounts for procedures. Providers will often grossly overbill (mostly because it's easier to let the billing backend resolve these limits than bill accurately in the first place) and your insurance will respond with the amount covered. The remaining amount of the bill is written off because it was in-network so the provider is not allowed (by the contract with your insurance) to bill the balance not covered to the patient.
Out-of-network does not have this protection. Your insurance will possibly cover some of the bill, normally up to some percentage of what they consider a normal amount for the procedure in the area, and then you will be billed for the entire balance. Say your provider bills $100k and your insurance says they think that procedure normally only costs $50k and you have 80% out of network coverage. You would be billed for 20% of the $50k covered as coinsurance, plus the remaining $50k that would've been written off if you were in-network.
This is generally how people get surprise bills.
For a real world example: last year my insurance got billed ~$3k for a routine blood test for my wife as part of an annual checkup. It was in-network and the insurance paid $27 and the provider wrote off the rest.
I understand this, but don’t understand why millions of people are ok with the system. It has a lot more in common with a protection racket than with patient care in my view.
It's not that millions of people are "OK" with it, but that in practice democratic elections aren't actually about policy. Suppose Alice's policy is to do X, and Bob's policy is to do Y, we might suppose voters who overwhelmingly want X will go vote for Alice, but nope, the Bob voters will still vote Bob and then be annoyed that Y happened, independent of continuing to support Bob. That doesn't make sense, but it's what happens.
This would be a grave defect if the purpose of democracy was to achieve good government, but in fact we haven't the faintest idea how to get good government, democracy is a fix for bloodshed during the inevitable power transitions. So, a bunch of idiots with no clue are still in charge, but now a _different_ bunch of idiots can take over without having to murder a bunch of people to do it.
Not true, because people actually hate insurance companies. The best propaganda is by the hospitals because no one ever seems to complain much about them.
There's been a lot of revealing reporting over the past decade but people don't seem to care: the price of a procedure in two different hospitals in the same city can vary by 10x because they literally pull prices they charge from their asses. They tend to justify this by saying "no one ever pays that price".
But when I got a bill for my wife's surgery that included 15k for 1 hour in a recovery room, another 25k for 1 hour in a surgery room, and 9k for an overnight stay (on top of the 20k from the surgeon, 3k from the anesthesiologist, and 3-5k from random doctors we saw for a few seconds) those words sure as shit were not reassuring.
All my past attempts to get an idea of what something might cost me, even when I knew insurance wouldn't cover it, have failed. It takes days worth of time on the phone only to get the wrong answer. One even told me that I only get the cash price if I don't have insurance even if my insurance won't cover it - and I must have insurance because its illegal to not have insurance so I can't get the cash price. What the fuck man?
Hospitals can fuck off. I have no idea why they don't get more blame in this mess.
I think it's something in the American mindset. It's been said before, but Americans think of themselves as "temporarily embarrassed millionaires" when voting (hence why they consistently vote in the interests of the rich - everyone thinks they'll benefit from those tax cuts when they win the lottery/sell their startup/etc).
Same situation here; "health care costs are for those sick losers. I'm not going to get sick, so it doesn't matter to me how much it costs, and I don't want to pay more tax to reduce healthcare costs for those losers".
I exaggerate, but it does seem like there's something like this going on...
I agree with you in part, but in my opinion propaganda and lobbying are the problem because this is the source of the disconnect. When people got increased protections from the ACA, nobody complained. The insurance and hospitals deliberately shitcanned the healthcare marketplace and MOST pepole don't put much thought into why the mandated insurance became unconscionably expensinve, they just thought "Obamacare is worhtless" because that's what they were told.
I don't think it's specifically an American thing to avoid much thought about becoming really ill. It's an uncomfortable subject.
It is partly a cultural thing - a kind of cult of narcissism.
But those attitudes are carefully cultivated by the media. They don't just happen.
Congress and the Senate are full of corrupt leeches, and both parties are equally guilty.
Votes make no difference. Corporate money buys political careers, and it pays for both sides.
There are a few exceptions, cultivated to maintain the appearance of representative democracy, but they're rarely - if ever - allowed anywhere near policy.
Those aren't the equivalencies I'm asserting. My position is that members of both parties expend far too much energy working on re-election fundraising versus working for the people. That's the equivalency I'm asserting.
I don't think millions of people are okay with it. I think the vast majority are unaware, those who are aware have no agency, and very powerful interests seek to maintain the status quo.
yeah. Can you refuse treatment from an OON provider in a hospital? Because that would be my first question if approached by a doctor who could potentially bill me $100K
For ER agreed. For anything else that is serious / non trivial, you also want to consider the repuation of the department. Some doctors are world specialist of something, or treat dozens of a particular condition every year. Others rarely do or are simply not good. I don't think there is any way for a layman to know. You kind of need to ask relatives in the profession, who can themselves ask around. I have a few doctors as relatives and they systematically check the reputation.
It doesn't make sense, but you have to (as a patient) make sure that the provider you're getting healthcare from is covered by the insurance company's (changeable) list. Its indefensible but it's reality.
I cannot wait for reform and I hope it hits before I get old and need it often.
As an aside, even the billing system is fucked up. When I get a receipt for covered care, it often looks a lot like a bill. This has to be by design. Its bad enough that I just ignore both "receipts" and bills and wait for the collectors to call me. That's how I know which is which.
There are interesting cases, where doctors prescribe stuff they get no valuable information from.
I had this in US. Shoulder pain, that was diagnosed via an XRay... But the doctor decided he wanted an MRI. That's no unusual, but unnecessary in my case. Got charged extra $500 for the pleasure. Thankfully I was on an HDHP, so the HSA savings got hit.
>I had this in US. Shoulder pain, that was diagnosed via an XRay... But the doctor decided he wanted an MRI.
Xray is mainly for bone problems. MRI shows well soft tissue. In medicine, if something you suspect even it has a low probability and the diagnostics are not invasive, it is better to check than to miss and regret later. Why are you so sure that MRI was not necessary in your case?
I saw my other doctor, slightly more decorated orthopaedic surgeon, that literally told me that I was blasted with XRay for no reason or my MRI wasn't necessary.
I have an irritating bone spur in the shoulder, that's the only problem.
The doctor ordered both Xray and MRI at the same time, while there was literally no need for one of them.
You are reasoning backwards. Had the cause been something besides a bone spur, such as a tumor or vascular problem, the X-ray might have missed it. Some things like soft tissue calcification don't show up as well on MRI as on a plain X-ray film which is a really low radiation dose these days anyways. Go read up on the terms sensitivity and specificity.
That’s not an unreasonable charge for an MRI and I’d argue that you got off quite lightly. You can’t diagnose many of the potential problems shoulders have from an x-ray but a good clinical examination will catch many of them, with an MRI for confirmation. Labral tears would be an example of this.
For a second I read your comment as liberal tears, and had to do a double-take. :)
Speaking to the 500$ charge, are you saying that is a typical cost around the world for a MRI? Is there something about the machine's cost that justifies this or are you just saying that a 500$ charge is typical in the american system?
That’s impressive. The purchase price and running cost are high. Then there are expensive labour costs (doctor, probably 2x techs and admin/reception staff. Often a nurse is around for more complex procedure too). Peripheral equipment isn’t cheap, with defib, contract injectors, RIS/PACS, reporting stations etc.
Scans are slow relative to CT and x-ray so I have no idea how they make that work. Did you pay the whole bill?
I am an MR tech.
I’m not sure you are correct in that - MRI scanners are expensive to run as they are rarely as low priced as you are suggesting. See link below which is a little old but gives a spread of prices. Note that the prices cited i this thread is less than half the US average.
Another factor that is relatively rarely discussed is the quality. You can do a fast scan or a good scan. That’s inherent in how MRI works.
A good gynaecological, cardiac or liver scan takes about 45mins, and there isn’t much you can do to improve on that as you are limited by metabolic activity (eg liver or heart contast wash-in and wash-out). If corners are cut here diagnosic quality will be reduced.
I regularly see scans that are of such poor quality that they are initially mistaken for the survey scans/scouts that we use to localise the patient in the bore. They are generally from places that you would intuitively avoid for healthcare, but not always.
That negative MRI result can be just as informative as a positive one. Maybe your XRay gave the doc only 80% confidence in the diagnosis, and the MRI was to rule out a larger issue. Like an engineer, doctors work deductively to rule out potential diagnoses, so all that is left is the correct one. Inductive logic brings in subconscious bias and assumptions.
Forgive my ignorance but how is that possible? The highest out of pocket maximums for Marketplace plans is $15700 for an entire family.