Lede (“lede” is the actual spelling as Chris Hart-Nibbrig keeps on reminding us) “Hospital charges a mystery to many” asserts:
“And even more confusing.
Hospitals offer discounts to self-pay patients, which vary greatly from place to place.
“Remember the hip replacement surgery charges, where Regional had the highest charge and LGH the lowest?
“Regional offers a 64 percent discount for self-pay patients, bringing its hip replacement charge to $21,757.
“LGH offers a much lower discount for self-pay patients, 25 percent, bringing its total to $28,321, about $6,500 more than Regional’s.”
WATCHDOG: Two wags of a tail: One for the reporters who set forth the issues so clearly…with the above possible exception. The other is for the editor who assigned and approved the report.
The article covers some of the ground that Newslanc’s borrowed reporter Doug McVay researched and wrote a series about in 2008 and has been added to over the years.
What is meant by “Hospitals offer discounts to self-pay patients”?
Discounts from what? We know that the government and the insurance company pay far less. So if “self-pay” patients are offered discount, who is the dumb SOB who is paying the full freight?
The answer: The so call “price” is ficticious and strictly for calculating actual prices according to a sliding scale of discounts are based. Think of it as a sticker price on a new car.
We are separately posting three NewsLanc articles from 2008 and 2009 resulting from McVay’s ground breaking research on LGH.
