Hospitals lift curtain on prices, revealing giant swings in pricing by procedure
I am one of the people responsible for making these lists. The fact that the general public as well as journalists think this data is accurate in anyway is really funny. This an exercise of futility that only increases the overall cost and provides job security for me :)No one working in a hospital knows how much do we acquire things for, or how much we get paid for doing things in advance. And only like 8 people can tell you that information 3 months after the fact.Take the simple exercise of figuring out cost/revenue of an aspirin administration.Cost depends on:
1. Are you an outpatient/Obsveration v. inpatient v. ED?
2. Are you on Medicaid?
3. Is the hospital a part of GPO organization or not?
4. Is contractual obligations of GPO includes/excludes Aspirin?Reimbursement depends on:
1. Insurance
2. Group which you are under the insurance from
3. Contract language whether its a fee/service or bundled
4. Is the visit covered or not
5. how the visit/procedure was coded (most important and opaque factor)Everybody in the know, knows that these lists are a joke, but no one can prove it.