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Dialysis Costs
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Dialysis Costs
My sister started dialysis the day after Christmas. She had about six treatments before she was hospitalized for a MSSA infection of her catheter. She almost died. With aggressive treatment she pulled through and after a month at the hospital she was discharged to a skilled nursing facility for ambulatory rehabbing. She had dialysis in the hospital before restarting her dialysis at a renal dialysis center where she was originally placed in December. February was her first full month billing for her dialysis care which was 12 days at 4 hours per day. I was shocked at the bill. $161,000 for twelve 4 hour sessions. Her Blue Cross Medicare C plan paid $3000, my sister paid $750 and the remainder was an “adjustment” by the provider. So if you don’t have insurance you would be on the hook for $157,000. So my observation is that medicaid is probably picking up a large amount of this kind of expense for homeless and illegals or this is the way they bankrupt people from their retirement savings. What has been the experience of others with this kind of interesting accounting. What would be the true costs including a reasonable profit margin for dialysis sessions? Certainly it is more than what the insurance and patient copay are paying. But it can’t possibly be costing approximately $14,000 for a 4 hour session. I’m in the wrong business. My sister’s first 7 days in the hospital cost about $290,000 and I have no clue what the cost was for her second 15 day stay in a bigger hospital for her surgery referral. Probably more than a half million would be my guess. God help you if you don’t have medical insurance.
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2 Replies
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With very highly paid administration and other bells and whistles, with hefty profit margins no doubt, costs accrue rapidly to the patient. About 5-6 yrs ago I broke my collar bone and called for an EMT thinking a hospital would set the bone for best healing. Without going thru the insanity of this trip which left me stranded in the facility regardless of how many times I called for someone to help me find a way home (Sunday nite at midnight!) suffice it to say I was really pissed off and the next day called to complain. I talked with a patient advocate, a nurse who got out of that end the nightmare work, and asked her the costs for this no treatment + abuse. As expected the bill was just under $5000.00!!!!! They literally did nothing but offer me all the morphine I could want and refused. I called Medicare and Medicaid and told them not to pay the bill and filed a complaint against the facility. It was outrageuous the charges for doing absolutely nothing. FYI, my healing went very well and super fast using my holistic protocols at home. Despite being told by an orthopedist that driving would not be possible for 3-4 months, I was driving in 1 month and this guy was stunned to see this healing. He was not a part of this hospital debacle but a different facility. A visit with him was far cheaper–maybe around $2-300.00 with an xray and consult and me educating him on how I healed so fast. I should have given him my bill.
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Yes, it’s always been like this. At least in my lifetime. Artificially inflated prices that insurance doesn’t pay, and that you often don’t have to pay if you negotiate “cash price” up front.
Now it’s even worse. The insurance companies used to be motivated to reduce costs. I had a surgery in the 80’s and they told me every error I found on the bill, they’d split with me 50/50. Now they want mis-billing because they just charge more for insurance and make more profit. And now with prescriptions and the Pharmacy Benefit Managers there’s kickbacks to the insurance companies that regular people don’t get.I’ve always said there is one single thing that could drop our medical costs dramatically overnight. Just make it illegal for medical providers to bill more than 50% (or some other %) over the minimum contracted price.
Just publishing prices would go a long way as well, but if you’re in an emergency you obviously aren’t going to check prices.
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