[Cindi Anderson]

You mean like ice cream machines in chemo infusion centers? Sad but true.

However I was pleasantly surprised recently when my husband spent a day at St Lukes in Boise. He was able to order off a menu with quite a few options, and said it was quite good. I’m sure it wasn’t organic and suspect it wasn’t cooked in healthy ways, but it looked like you could put together a fairly healthy meal plan.

[IMA-HelenT]

Wow, that’s just insane, ice cream…., and you can bet it’s not even ice cream made with local thick cream and a bit of sugar, It’s like packed with all sorts of preservatives.

I do worry that hospitals will pretend to cook healthy food, but use substandard ingredients and add sauces etc with sugars and preservatives. It just should not be hard to choose healthy food off a hospital menu.

[hiddenhill]

and cut into their profits? I would not feed my dog their food… figure if I went into a hospital setting then I would be losing a lot of weight being on a serious fast!

[IMA-HelenT]

I hear you @hiddenhill 🤭 Luckily we know the benefits of fasting on healing our bodies.

[Paul Smith]

Beef, chicken, pork, fish, eggs, mutton, elk, butter, bison, veal, lard, lamb, deer…we need to learn to eat all over again.

[IMA-GregT]

@shortstop Simple. But as I write this, I’m very conscious that we have many on this forum who prefer to not eat meat (and or derivatives at all). As long as what you eat makes and keeps you healthy.

[cattlerancher]

Follow the money. Sugar feeds cancer so it makes sense that Ice Cream is available at Chemo Infusion Centers. They make money by keeping you sick. I can go on, but why bother.

[IMA-HelenT]

It certainly feels like it’s a war on health and companies lining their back pockets at our expense.

[Jack and Judy Odell]

My husband recently had a bad cycling accident and spent a week in the hospital, including ICU. The food was the worst we have experienced yet. The nurse said the hospital had changed vendors 3 times in the past year or so. There was no choice of food options. You get what they cook. So, I took in food daily, as soon as he was able to eat: homemade kefir, beef liver, raw milk and cheese, pasture raised hamburger, fruits, etc. They were amazed how well he did, except for the poison antibiotics that were wreaking havoc throughout his body. (Answer to prayer: he was taken off of all of them early!)

Another beef I have with the medical system…when we donate blood platelets at Bloodworks, they offer snacks and drink afterwards, thinking they are being helpful. But their offering include sweet drinks, chips, cookies, and other junk. I have mentioned this to them, that it would be nice to be nourished after our two-hour stint.

[IMA-HelenT]

So glad your husband had you to care for his health. I wonder why insurance companies are not pushing this change?

Oh, yes @cyclists such a good point, you donate, that makes hospitals money of course, then after donation they don’t even bother to provide a healthy snack … seems like a bad business model as well as being unethical.

[Jack and Judy Odell]

We’ve been wondering if we should continue donating platelets and blood. Since we are non-COVID vaccinated we thought our blood would be beneficial for them to have. But they’ve never asked the question! So they probably don’t care. How do hospitals make money on these donations? Very interesting.

[IMA-HelenT]

From AI

Hospitals do not make money directly from blood donations themselves—blood is donated voluntarily and for free in the US (regulated by the FDA and organizations like the American Red Cross).

However, hospitals and blood centers do charge fees to cover the costs of processing, testing, storing, and distributing blood. Here’s how the money flows:

1. Blood is Donated for Free (Whole Blood)

In the US, whole blood donation is 100% voluntary and unpaid through nonprofits like the American Red Cross (which supplies ~45% of the nation’s blood) or community blood centers (another ~50%).

2. Hospitals Pay Blood Centers for “Blood Products”

Even though the blood is free, hospitals must pay for:

• Collection & transportation

• Screening for diseases (HIV, hepatitis, syphilis, etc.—up to 30 tests per unit)

• Blood typing & cross-matching

• Separation into components (red cells, plasma, platelets)

• Storage (refrigeration, freezing)

• Quality control & safety testing

• Administrative & logistical costs

These fees are negotiated between hospitals and suppliers (e.g., Red Cross) and cover ~98–100% of costs, with slim margins (e.g., 3% for some centers).

3. Hospitals Bill Patients or Insurers

Hospitals mark up the blood product cost plus their own handling, transfusion administration, and staff fees.

Public/nonprofit hospitals get reimbursed via Medicare/Medicaid (e.g., Medicare covers after first 3 units/year or donor replacement; deductible : $1,676 in 2025 for inpatient).

Private hospitals bill insurance or patients directly—transfusions can cost $1,000–$5,000+ per unit to the end user.

The overall blood market was valued at $11.5 billion in 2023, driven by these fees.

4. Plasma: The Big Money-Maker (Separate System)

Whole blood plasma is a byproduct for transfusions (low revenue), but source plasma for drugs is a massive industry:

Collected via paid apheresis at for-profit centers (e.g., CSL Plasma, Grifols), donors get $30–$100 per donation (up to 2x/week), totaling $400–$800/month.

US supplies 70% of global plasma; centers sell to pharma companies for fractionation into meds (e.g., immunoglobulins, clotting factors).

Revenue: $20–$25 billion globally (2023), with US centers earning billions—e.g., Red Cross biomedical services brought in $1.8B (2022), subsidizing free blood ops.

This is not from transfusion donations; paid plasma is labeled “paid donor” and used only for manufacturing, not direct transfusions.

Summary: Where Hospitals “Make Money”

Source

Revenue for Hospital?

Blood donation itself

❌ No

Fees charged to patients/insurers for transfusion services

✅ Yes (markup on processing/admin)

Reimbursement from Medicare/insurance

✅ Yes

Plasma sold to pharma (from paid donors)

❌ No (handled by separate for-profit centers)