What are the most common medical procedures? We are interested in knowing, so we did some research. Blood transfusion, it turns out, and childbirth. Oh, and circumcision. According to a list of the top 10 procedures billed to Medicare in U.S. hospitals in 2003, excluding pregnancy and childbirth, as published by the Agency for […]
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Need free and low-cost medications and clinics? Here’s help.
Finding good medical-price resources is one of our favorite things, so we were excited to trip over NeedyMeds. It’s a web site with terrific resources, including maps and phone numbers of clinics supplying free and low-cost medical services. The site also has map functions allowing consumers to search for clinics within a certain distance of […]
Posted inCosts, Patients, Providers
Laurels to NYU Langone for this public resource on health
Sometimes we complain about the terrible state of the health-care system in this country. A lot of the time, in fact. So it’s really nice to be able to praise someone. I just tripped across this fabulous listing of free and low-cost health-care resources for New Yorkers, brought to the web by the NYC Free […]
Posted inHealth plans, Patients
Washington, D.C., Spends More on Health Insurance than Any Other City, New Study Shows
Via SFGate.com: A new study by selfhealthinsurance.com, a price quote site, says Washington, D.C. spends more on insurance than other cities. It also “shows that larger, more populated cities tend to have higher health care costs. The three largest metropolitan areas of the United States: New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago, are all on the […]
Posted inCosts, Patients, Providers
How much does a vasectomy cost? Special promotion prices
(Updated 2022) The cost of birth-control pills and devices has been in the news a lot lately. But we haven’t seen a lot about the cost of vasectomies and related special promotion prices for vasectomies. In our continuing effort to bring transparency to the health-care marketplace, we did a little reporting on the price of […]
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Tales from the trenches: A friend’s health-care woes
A friend wrote: “I’m reaching out to you in hopes that you can help guide me on my personal medical bills … . First I have to let you know that I was laid off … last week due to budget cuts…. “With that being said, my medical bills are ridiculous. “I just received my […]
Posted inCosts
Aetna: Watching an insurance giant transform itself
“Health insurance companies strayed from their roles as insurance companies and became prepaid healthcare service companies mucking around with the equivalent of car tune-ups, tire changes and the like. Imagine if we had co-pays, deductibles, Explanation of Benefits for tune-ups and tire changes. We would be paying a 40% insurance bureaucracy tax there as well. Health insurance […]
Posted inCosts, Health plans, Patients
The costs of surgery
From the folks at medicalbillingandcoding.org, another entertaining infographic. Via: Medical Billing and Coding Resource
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How much does it cost? And why does it matter?
How often do health care providers consider the cost of care? Should they be thinking about costs as they prescribe treatments? That’s the topic of a piece by Pauline W. Chen, M.D., published in The New York Times. The article was interesting enough, featuring the work of our friend Dr. Neel Shah over at costsofcare.org, […]
Posted inCosts, Health plans, Patients, Providers
Another transparency player: HealthGram, from N.C.
A new (to us) transparency player: HealthGram, from North Carolina. They do benefits administration, price negotiation, prevention management–health care, dental care, FSA and HSA, compliance etc. They have this interesting fee schedule calculator, which they use to predict and negotiate fees, based on the Medicare schedule. They also help employers providers develop networks, manage […]
