healthcare cost

[link51411]

my wife just had a baby and the amount of money that my insurance and i were charged for simple procedures was astounding. 75 dollars for a lab draw, 400 for the md to check things out the day after delivery when he was already on the floor with other pts. about a thousand for an ultrasound. i mean i can do an ekg, labs, and ct in under an hour without thinking about it. i just didn't realize how much it actually cost. i mean over 20,000 to have an uneventful lady partsl delivery when we checked out of the hospital early.

what do you all think the cause of this is. part of me thinks this is just insane and the other part is thinking why am i only getting twenty some dollars an hour when somebody is making a ridiculous amount off of my work.

[link51411]

to the post above about it costing 17 grand in 1994. i must say my wife did it natural without any pain intervention. which may change the contrast. however, altra made a good point about overhead cost that i often forget about. for example when i was a waiter we up charged 4times the amount for every bottle of wine and still struggled to make a profit.

i guess where i am upset is from my standpoint my practice seemed so simple. i mean me and my residence used to throw in a lactic acid on an ABG simply because i already was doing a risky ART stick. but now im starting to think is this fair to the pt/insurance comp. for us to do this.

i dont even know anymore. pt care or to be cost efficient. in this economy i think as providers the shift is going to have to be cost efficient care. which i dont know if im ok with or not.

but altra is correct i didnt and still dont understand the billing process.

[Altra, BSN, RN]

to the post above about it costing 17 grand in 1994. i must say my wife did it natural without any pain intervention. which may change the contrast. however, altra made a good point about overhead cost that i often forget about. for example when i was a waiter we up charged 4times the amount for every bottle of wine and still struggled to make a profit.

i guess where i am upset is from my standpoint my practice seemed so simple. i mean me and my residence used to throw in a lactic acid on an ABG simply because i already was doing a risky ART stick. but now im starting to think is this fair to the pt/insurance comp. for us to do this.

i dont even know anymore. pt care or to be cost efficient. in this economy i think as providers the shift is going to have to be cost efficient care. which i dont know if im ok with or not.

but altra is correct i didnt and still dont understand the billing process.

Consider this ... even if your wife declined any analgesia/anesthesia ... she was in a setting where those options were immediately available, should they be needed. She was still in the same setting with the same infrastructure and immediate readiness of technological intervention. The fact that she did not in fact utilize a vial or two of x med ... is a very tiny piece of the overall picture.