Re:Why Medical Bills Are Killing Us (2013) [pdf]
by gbrs on Monday November 14, 2016 @10:36AM
(#12950416)
Does that $3 million also include the expertise needed to operate and maintain the machine? You also need to account for the money the hospital needs to save to buy a new one when the one they have becomes outdated. Still might not add up to the actual cost they charge for a scan but it would look a bit more reasonable. My guess is the different negotiated rates for insurance plus the low income policies make everything convoluted and add a decent amount of overhead. I wish they would stop this negotiating crap and charge whatever it costs for them to do a scan. At least then I will know how much it will cost upfront.
Re:Why Medical Bills Are Killing Us (2013) [pdf]
by maxerickson on Monday November 14, 2016 @11:05AM
(#12950649)
It's perhaps more stark with the CT scanners mentioned in the article.
They pay off the capital cost in 1 year. If you figure they need two imaging technicians on site 24 hours a day, the labor to staff the machine is roughly 6 * $200,000, or $1.2 million per year. If they average 1 scan per hour (a scan can take as little as 5 minutes), the labor cost of those techs is $140 per scan.
If it costs more than $1 million dollars to service the machine per year (the machines cost less than that new), the service cost is $140 per scan.
Hospitals routinely charge $2000+ for CT scans.
An MRI machine used on average 10 times a day for 10 years can do 36,500 scans at the cost of ~3 million for the machine. 3,000,000 / 36500 ~= 82$ for the machines time. (Clearly more if it's used less often, but also clearly not 500+$.)
This is a case where the actual cost has almost nothing to do with the machine it's all about manpower + some consumables. So, what's the manpower actually doing? A huge chunk of time in the US is simply billing aka waste.