How much should a knee replacement cost?” It’s a topic Dr. Blair Rhode writes about on an orthopedic surgery web site, about bringing a retail method to medical pricing.

“If an uninsured patient went to a local hospital and asked to pay cash for a knee replacement, they would likely be quoted a number close to $40,000-$50,000, and this only represents one component of care,” he writes. “There is also the surgeon ($10,000), anesthesiologist ($2,500), labs ($1,000) and x-ray ($500). To put this into perspective, the numbers that Medicare agrees to pay are much different. Medicare pays approximately $10,500 to the hospital, $1,300 to the surgeon and $300 to the anesthesiologist. This is a grand total of $12,100 to have a knee replacement. Mind you, it is not our belief that this is a fair price and actually, some people feel that Medicare cost shifts actual costs to the backs of people that actually pay for their care. …

“When LASIK eye surgery first became available, the procedure cost in excess of $4,000 per eye,” he writes. “Today, ads promote $269 LASIK procedures. On top of that, the results have improved with new technological innovation. … There are people in the United States that are becoming part of the retail market.  OneFeeSurgery (www.onefeesurgery.com) and FairCareMD (www.faircaremd.com) are two such entities. These are web-based portals where healthcare providers offer reasonable prices for common orthopedic procedures. I created OneFeeSurgery with the belief in “all in” pricing. One of the most daunting aspects of the self-pay market is getting one fair fee quote for a particular procedure.”

Dr. Blair Rhode is a sports medicine orthopedic surgeon and owner, RoG Sports Medicine, as well as  founder of onefeesurgery.com, and he wrote this piece on Becker’s Orthopedic and Spine. 

Jeanne Pinder

Jeanne Pinder  is the founder and CEO of ClearHealthCosts. She worked at The New York Times for almost 25 years as a reporter, editor and human resources executive, then volunteered for a buyout and founded...