Depends on your insurance and coverage. Not to mention Hospital system you use. Some Hospital systems are better than others in pricing models. Though Medical companies and Hospital systems often try to nickel and dime you on outpatient procedures. Which is Where they make a lot of their money. As that is the extent of what most need. They often also subcontract these services rather than do them in house. Which adds further fees.
Much like Car Dealerships make the bulk of their money on financing cars. Rather than the sale of the vehicle itself.
But the truth of the matter is. Most companies are scamming us. Partly because they can. And partly because shareholders demand ever increasing returns on investment. An inordinate amount of problems can be traced back to the Financial Sector and publicly traded companies.
If you have insurance you don't have the option of paying out of pocket. What a scam. So I guess the key is to start off by saying you will be a self pay and don't give them any insurance information.
It depends on how good or bad your insurance is and what the doctor charges. All my scans, whether MRI, CAT, or PET, cost me $100 with insurance. I'm sure they would be closer to $1000 without insurance.
If you know the price without insurance is cheaper, then don't go through insurance. You don't have to use the insurance.
If you start out giving them your insurance information, they will not let you then chose to pay out of pocket. That is the problem. So, one needs to find out in advance what the costs are before submitting insurance. Unfortunately, a provider cannot estimate what the insurance payout is going to be without first submitting the information for preauthorization. Even though they can give a rough guess based on the normal course of business, they will not. This is because if the amount turns out wrong and the insurance pays differently, they could end up being on the hook. That is why they won't give a ball park figure. It is a racket.
It’s sad to know that honest folk work and build a financial nest egg for their retirement. Those who are fortunate enough and stay healthy may avoid the fate of one who become ill and watch that savings get devoured by the healthcare industry and left with nothing in the end to pass on to younger generations. Yes, we enter the world with nothing and will leave the same, but aside from a legal will, it would be nice to have control and final say…..
Doctors and hospitals (especially) figured out how to milk the health insurance machine in the early 1970's. For 20 years before that, health insurance was very affordable. Also back then, people didn't run to the ER every time they had a sniffle.
For that time "20 years before that," we didn't even have insurance. My father paid the medical bills with cash money. Even in the early 70s when my sister was born, my father paid the hospital bill with cash. He was prepared with cash in his billfold at the time my mother and sister checked out, but they didn't have the bill prepared. It cost him about $750 for my sister's birth.
I did have some health insurance with the school system, but I only used it once in 12 years (8th grade sprained wrist from hitting the volleyball too hard). My father just paid for everything else.
I was at the doctor's office back in the early 70s when an older woman came in with a cut finger. She was insisting on seeing the doctor. The doctor finally came out and said, "Don't you have a cut doctor? Go see a surgeon." He sent her away. He wasn't having any of her silly little problem. He's also the doctor who taught me how to get shots without them hurting.
I found a receipt, after my father died in 1999, dated 2964 from a small hospital ER in Iowa. He had X-rays taken on both arms and was given a pain killer and the total bill was $3.50.
Many physicians today work for corporate structures and collect a salary. The days of private practice are becoming a thing of the past. When the ACA passed, there were many private practices over the next several years that just decided to close up shop and sell off if they could. Many established practices were bought by corporate entities. This was because the average provider fresh out of school simply doesn't have the resources to step in to an already established practice, and starting your own practice takes time and a huge financial investment. With huge student loan payments staring you in the face, getting a paycheck as soon as possible is the top priority for most. Only a few are lucky enough to have wealthy relatives that can help fund a new career.
Dentistry has also seen an explosion of corporate control over the industry. The actual providers themselves in medicine and dentistry today have far less say over the business end of what they do as compared to several decades ago. Many simply don't manage the practices where they work.
The only dentists my wife and I see are individual dentists who own their offices. They don't take insurance and are pretty reasonable for what they do. I had a tooth pulled, and it was only $75, and he called me the next day at home to make sure I was doing okay.
There are also a few doctors in my town who have their own practices where they do not take insurance of any kind, just cash. They are very affordable.
Most of the other doctors in my town are owned by Sentara, which also owns the local hospital and many in the southeastern part of VA.
Sounds about right. Those guys have probably had their practices for awhile and decided to drop the insurance after the ACA went into effect. I knew some colleagues that made the move themselves. They said they can keep their costs down by not having to have all that staff just to handle insurance plus they don't have all the headaches. They live within their means and are not looking to make a bunch of money. They also don't want some insurance company dictating how they practice. The way most medicine and dentistry used to be.
it's been that way for a long time. We used to pay just major medical but then Obomacare required that we pay full coverage including pregnancy and abortion for other people. Premiums quadrupled . And we old, not going to have any more babies. Socialism.
That pretty much sums it up. Sooner of later a system like that runs out of other people's money. I am still waiting for my $2500 and I lost my provider.
I think it’s all about the tax code. The insurance companies don’t pay that much. The hospitals and doctors charge X amount and only get reimbursement of Y amount. Then they write off the difference as a loss against the profits. This is speculation, but likely so.
No. Just the Libtayo. Also, I don't eat as much as I used to, so I've lost nearly 100 pounds in the past couple of years. My regular doctor also has me on Vitamin D every day.
Libtayo. I have a really smart oncologist. She was born in NY and talks a mile a minute, so I had to record early sessions so I could write things down later. My regular doctor is similar, born in NY, but she's been in NC a while and talks a bit slower.
I listened to the video and found it incredible that an MRI with insurance could cost that much. I have gotten a lot of MRIs, CAT scans, and PET scans in the past two years because of cancer. My portion of every one of those was just $100. She must have some sorry insurance. I wouldn't have been cured of cancer with her insurance.
The existence of health insurance has directly caused prices to skyrocket much faster than overall inflation.
Having insurance prevents price discovery. If your doctor copay is $20 per visit, no matter which doctor you go to, then you don't know if your doctor is really cheaper or more expensive. The price they charge gets covered by insurance and your premiums. It's the same with medicine. If your regular drug copay is $10, you don't know which drugstore is cheaper.
Without insurance, you get to shop around. Doctors and drugstores then compete in price.
When I was in college, an asthma inhaler was under $15, full price. The average prescription cost was between $2 and $3 each. Now, my copay for generic albuterol is $10, but other inhalers are $20 or $40. I don't have many prescriptions, so my cost isn't bad. My wife gets more, so by September, she has passed the maximum, so the rest of the year is free.
When I was a child, my father would take me to the doctor. When the doctor was done, my father would ask how much, and the doctor himself would say $5 or $10. There was no staff, other than the one nurse, and no paperwork at all. My father would hand the doctor himself the $5 or $10, and the doctor would put it in his billfold. Now I must pay $20 or $40 in copay for every doctor visit. The doctor bills insurance hundreds for each visit. It's even more egregious with my immunotherapy treatments for cancer. The doctor bills insurance over $30,000 for each treatment. I pay $10. But I and millions of others pay a ton for the insurance.
I think we would be better to get rid of health and medicine insurance except for major health problems. Being rarer, the insurance would be much cheaper, and we could pay for all the minor stuff out of pocket and be ahead of today's system.
We pay 20% copay. A 500 dollar mri is then $6,000. We pay $1200 to cover the mri, another mri for an illegal and a bit of profit. The insurance company does NOT pay the difference. They pay a negotiated price which my doctor said is Pennie’s on the dollar comparatively.
Depends on your insurance and coverage. Not to mention Hospital system you use. Some Hospital systems are better than others in pricing models. Though Medical companies and Hospital systems often try to nickel and dime you on outpatient procedures. Which is Where they make a lot of their money. As that is the extent of what most need. They often also subcontract these services rather than do them in house. Which adds further fees.
Much like Car Dealerships make the bulk of their money on financing cars. Rather than the sale of the vehicle itself.
But the truth of the matter is. Most companies are scamming us. Partly because they can. And partly because shareholders demand ever increasing returns on investment. An inordinate amount of problems can be traced back to the Financial Sector and publicly traded companies.
They are also the same ones that write the very rules that the rest of us are forced to submit to if we need to use the services.
If you have insurance you don't have the option of paying out of pocket. What a scam. So I guess the key is to start off by saying you will be a self pay and don't give them any insurance information.
It depends on how good or bad your insurance is and what the doctor charges. All my scans, whether MRI, CAT, or PET, cost me $100 with insurance. I'm sure they would be closer to $1000 without insurance.
If you know the price without insurance is cheaper, then don't go through insurance. You don't have to use the insurance.
If you start out giving them your insurance information, they will not let you then chose to pay out of pocket. That is the problem. So, one needs to find out in advance what the costs are before submitting insurance. Unfortunately, a provider cannot estimate what the insurance payout is going to be without first submitting the information for preauthorization. Even though they can give a rough guess based on the normal course of business, they will not. This is because if the amount turns out wrong and the insurance pays differently, they could end up being on the hook. That is why they won't give a ball park figure. It is a racket.
Healthcare currently is a SCAM!! All by design.
It’s sad to know that honest folk work and build a financial nest egg for their retirement. Those who are fortunate enough and stay healthy may avoid the fate of one who become ill and watch that savings get devoured by the healthcare industry and left with nothing in the end to pass on to younger generations. Yes, we enter the world with nothing and will leave the same, but aside from a legal will, it would be nice to have control and final say…..
Doctors and hospitals (especially) figured out how to milk the health insurance machine in the early 1970's. For 20 years before that, health insurance was very affordable. Also back then, people didn't run to the ER every time they had a sniffle.
For that time "20 years before that," we didn't even have insurance. My father paid the medical bills with cash money. Even in the early 70s when my sister was born, my father paid the hospital bill with cash. He was prepared with cash in his billfold at the time my mother and sister checked out, but they didn't have the bill prepared. It cost him about $750 for my sister's birth.
I did have some health insurance with the school system, but I only used it once in 12 years (8th grade sprained wrist from hitting the volleyball too hard). My father just paid for everything else.
I was at the doctor's office back in the early 70s when an older woman came in with a cut finger. She was insisting on seeing the doctor. The doctor finally came out and said, "Don't you have a cut doctor? Go see a surgeon." He sent her away. He wasn't having any of her silly little problem. He's also the doctor who taught me how to get shots without them hurting.
I found a receipt, after my father died in 1999, dated 2964 from a small hospital ER in Iowa. He had X-rays taken on both arms and was given a pain killer and the total bill was $3.50.
Many physicians today work for corporate structures and collect a salary. The days of private practice are becoming a thing of the past. When the ACA passed, there were many private practices over the next several years that just decided to close up shop and sell off if they could. Many established practices were bought by corporate entities. This was because the average provider fresh out of school simply doesn't have the resources to step in to an already established practice, and starting your own practice takes time and a huge financial investment. With huge student loan payments staring you in the face, getting a paycheck as soon as possible is the top priority for most. Only a few are lucky enough to have wealthy relatives that can help fund a new career.
Dentistry has also seen an explosion of corporate control over the industry. The actual providers themselves in medicine and dentistry today have far less say over the business end of what they do as compared to several decades ago. Many simply don't manage the practices where they work.
The only dentists my wife and I see are individual dentists who own their offices. They don't take insurance and are pretty reasonable for what they do. I had a tooth pulled, and it was only $75, and he called me the next day at home to make sure I was doing okay.
There are also a few doctors in my town who have their own practices where they do not take insurance of any kind, just cash. They are very affordable.
Most of the other doctors in my town are owned by Sentara, which also owns the local hospital and many in the southeastern part of VA.
Sounds about right. Those guys have probably had their practices for awhile and decided to drop the insurance after the ACA went into effect. I knew some colleagues that made the move themselves. They said they can keep their costs down by not having to have all that staff just to handle insurance plus they don't have all the headaches. They live within their means and are not looking to make a bunch of money. They also don't want some insurance company dictating how they practice. The way most medicine and dentistry used to be.
it's been that way for a long time. We used to pay just major medical but then Obomacare required that we pay full coverage including pregnancy and abortion for other people. Premiums quadrupled . And we old, not going to have any more babies. Socialism.
That pretty much sums it up. Sooner of later a system like that runs out of other people's money. I am still waiting for my $2500 and I lost my provider.
I think it’s all about the tax code. The insurance companies don’t pay that much. The hospitals and doctors charge X amount and only get reimbursement of Y amount. Then they write off the difference as a loss against the profits. This is speculation, but likely so.
My cancer doctor bills over $30,000 for each of my immunotherapy treatments I get every three weeks. Insurance pays them over half of that. I pay $10.
Are you doing any of those alternative treatments. Fasting, fenbendazole, Chlorine dioxide?
No. Just the Libtayo. Also, I don't eat as much as I used to, so I've lost nearly 100 pounds in the past couple of years. My regular doctor also has me on Vitamin D every day.
🙏🙏🙏. I am glad it is only $10 for you. CAR T type, Bio Shield, or something else?
Libtayo. I have a really smart oncologist. She was born in NY and talks a mile a minute, so I had to record early sessions so I could write things down later. My regular doctor is similar, born in NY, but she's been in NC a while and talks a bit slower.
One of my prescriptions is 150$ with insurance.
It's 25 cash.
Whole things a scam.
It's a fairly standard circle jerk.
I listened to the video and found it incredible that an MRI with insurance could cost that much. I have gotten a lot of MRIs, CAT scans, and PET scans in the past two years because of cancer. My portion of every one of those was just $100. She must have some sorry insurance. I wouldn't have been cured of cancer with her insurance.
The existence of health insurance has directly caused prices to skyrocket much faster than overall inflation.
Having insurance prevents price discovery. If your doctor copay is $20 per visit, no matter which doctor you go to, then you don't know if your doctor is really cheaper or more expensive. The price they charge gets covered by insurance and your premiums. It's the same with medicine. If your regular drug copay is $10, you don't know which drugstore is cheaper.
Without insurance, you get to shop around. Doctors and drugstores then compete in price.
When I was in college, an asthma inhaler was under $15, full price. The average prescription cost was between $2 and $3 each. Now, my copay for generic albuterol is $10, but other inhalers are $20 or $40. I don't have many prescriptions, so my cost isn't bad. My wife gets more, so by September, she has passed the maximum, so the rest of the year is free.
When I was a child, my father would take me to the doctor. When the doctor was done, my father would ask how much, and the doctor himself would say $5 or $10. There was no staff, other than the one nurse, and no paperwork at all. My father would hand the doctor himself the $5 or $10, and the doctor would put it in his billfold. Now I must pay $20 or $40 in copay for every doctor visit. The doctor bills insurance hundreds for each visit. It's even more egregious with my immunotherapy treatments for cancer. The doctor bills insurance over $30,000 for each treatment. I pay $10. But I and millions of others pay a ton for the insurance.
I think we would be better to get rid of health and medicine insurance except for major health problems. Being rarer, the insurance would be much cheaper, and we could pay for all the minor stuff out of pocket and be ahead of today's system.
We pay 20% copay. A 500 dollar mri is then $6,000. We pay $1200 to cover the mri, another mri for an illegal and a bit of profit. The insurance company does NOT pay the difference. They pay a negotiated price which my doctor said is Pennie’s on the dollar comparatively.
They might bill that amount but the insurance company will pay their “contract rate”. Who knows how much that is.