Jeanne Pinder
“For more than 30 minutes on a frigid February morning, Robert Findley lay unconscious in the back of an ambulance as paramedics hand-pumped oxygen into his lungs,” Sarah Jane Tribble wrote for Kaiser Health News. “They were waiting for a helicopter to land at a helipad just across the icy parking lot next to Mercy […]
Jeanne Pinder
“The past decade has seen enormous growth in health care costs paid by both employees and employers, creating the context for some of today’s biggest political debates as well as teeing up more problems for the future,” Caitlin Owens writes for Axios. “Yes, but: There are some signs that employers have maxed out their ability […]
Jeanne Pinder
Epic, the giant electronic medical records company, is offering a price estimate button that doctors can use in the office. Kristin Cain, a reproductive endocrinologist in North Dakota, posted this on Twitter: “EPIC has a button I just discovered: Patient Estimate. After you place an order, it estimates the out of pocket cost. Except if […]
Jeanne Pinder
“A recently published analysis of hospital prices shows Georgia in the top third among 25 states studied,” Andy Miller writes over at Georgia Health News about a Rand study that dives deep into high hospital prices nationwide. The original study is here. “The Rand Corp. data uses prices paid by health insurers under employer-based coverage, […]
Jeanne Pinder
“As this week’s Democratic debates made clear, the party is divided on how to improve health care for Americans,” Ezekiel J. Emanuel wrote over at The New York Times. “Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and others are for a single-payer Medicare for All system. Joe Biden, Pete Buttigieg, Amy Klobuchar and others want an incremental approach […]
Jeanne Pinder
“One of the nation’s largest public charities steered financial aid to patients of its two biggest corporate donors — the dialysis chains DaVita and Fresenius — while denying help to people who used smaller, unrelated clinics, in violation of anti-kickback laws, according to a federal whistle-blower lawsuit unsealed this week in Boston,” Reed Abelson and […]
Jeanne Pinder
How much does childbirth and delivery cost? One community member reported paying $2,418.38 for antepartum care, vaginal delivery and postpartum care, and $899.80 for the hospital part of the experience. I asked for more details 1. This was the entire bill for antepartum, delivery and postpartum care? Also, did they ask for installments before, or […]
Jeanne Pinder
“After his son was hit by a car in San Francisco and taken away by ambulance, Karl Sporer was surprised to get a bill for $800,” Sarah Kliff and Margot Sanger-Katz write for The New York Times. “Mr. Sporer had health insurance, which paid for part of the ride. But the ambulance provider felt that […]
Jeanne Pinder
“If you try to use Medicare Advantage, figuring out which doctors are available (and where) can be exceedingly difficult, if not impossible,” Austin Frakt writes over at The New York Times. “Medicare Advantage is the government-subsidized, private alternative to the traditional public Medicare program. It has had strong enrollment growth for years. That growth has […]
Jeanne Pinder
How can you save money on fertility medications for in-vitro fertilization (IVF) and other assisted reproductive technologies, like intrauterine insemination (IUI), egg freezing, donor eggs and so on? We’ve been hearing a lot about rising costs for these procedures, and particularly about the medications, despite insurance. A couple of stories came our way. This post […]
