Sarah Kliff Maryland’s plan to upend health care spending
State officials also worried about the old system creating perverse incentives: The best way for a hospital to make money was to provide the highest volume of services, regardless of whether that care made patients healthier. That meant payers would simply sign checks for as many treatments as the hospitals recommended. The new system intends to end that revenue strategy by capping total spending.
Merrill Goozner It’s time for better healthcare journalism
When will we start seeing stories about what goes into the hospital price: the cost of labor and the cost of supplies, for instance, which make up 75% of all hospital costs? Where do our doctors rank on a global salary scale? What do we pay for drugs compared to the rest of the world? For implantable devices?
What Liberals Don’t Get About Single Payer by Ezra Klein
In general, Americans don’t use more health care than citizens of other countries. But we pay a lot more for the health care we do get. Data gathered by the International Federation of Health Plans show that an MRI costs, on average, $1,121 in the U.S. and $363 in France. An appendectomy costs $13,851 in the U.S. and $4,782 in Switzerland. A birth by cesarean section costs $3,676 in the U.S. and $606 in Canada. A bottle of Nexium — a common acid-reflux drug — costs $202 in the U.S. and $32 in the U.K.
And so in determining the price for a drug, companies ask themselves questions that have next to nothing to do with the drugs’ costs. “It is not a science,” the veteran drug maker and former Genzyme CEO Henri Termeer told me. “It is a feel.”
How Much Does A New Hip Cost? Even The Surgeon Doesn’t Know NPR
Kay Patterson: Public needs education to stop blow-out in healthcare
Dr Patterson said while the public was more informed about what services were available, there was not enough awareness of the cost they carried to the public purse.
Medical Price Transparency Law Rolls Out: Physicians Must Help Patients Estimate Costs Massachusetts
Costs for Complications from Cancer Surgical Care Extremely High
Maryland’s Bold Experiment In Reversing Fee-For-Service Incentives
Without the need to distribute profits to owners, managers of nonprofit hospitals and health systems instead have incentives to pursue business augmentation strategies – such as expanded facilities, duplicative technology, or the acquisition of physician practices —
..Health system inefficiencies costing $3 billion a year, says expert
Duckett “In the six public hospitals nationally that perform the most hip replacements, the average cost varies from less than $10,000 to more than $20,000.”
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