City hospital posts surgery prices on-line, creating bidding war

[Hum]

OKLAHOMA CITY ? An Oklahoma City surgery center is offering a new kind of price transparency, posting guaranteed all-inclusive surgery prices online. The move is revolutionizing medical billing in Oklahoma and around the world.

 

Dr. Keith Smith and Dr. Steven Lantier launched Surgery Center of Oklahoma 15 years ago, founded on the simple principle of price honesty.

 

?What we?ve discovered is health care really doesn?t cost that much,? Dr. Smith said. ?What people are being charged for is another matter altogether.?

 

Surgery Center of Oklahoma started posting their prices online about four years ago.

 

Click here to see the online prices at Surgery Center of Oklahoma.

 

The prices are all-inclusive quotes and they are guaranteed.

 

?When we first started we thought we were about half the price of the hospitals,? Dr. Lantier remembers. ?Then we found out we?re less than half price. Then we find out we?re a sixth to an eighth of what their prices are. I can?t believe the average person can afford health care at these prices.?

 

Their goal was to start a price war and they did.

 

Surgery Center of Oklahoma does accept private insurance, but the center does not accept Medicaid or Medicare.

 

Dr. Smith said federal Medicare regulation would not allow for their online price menu.

 

They have avoided government regulation and control in that area by choosing not to accept Medicaid or Medicare payments.

 

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[HawkMan]

OKLAHOMA CITY ? An Oklahoma City surgery center is offering a new kind of price transparency, posting guaranteed all-inclusive surgery prices online. The move is revolutionizing medical billing in Oklahoma and around the world.

 

eh, no. 

[Snake89]

eh, no. 

I was thinking the same thing. Most places in the world got free health care.

[xendrome]

I was thinking the same thing. Most places in the world got free health care.

 

Nothing is free... most of those places pay a huge amount of tax on their everyday lives/purchases.

[HawkMan]

Nothing is free... most of those places pay a huge amount of tax on their everyday lives/purchases.

 

and yet, at the end of the day, we have more money left of our paycheck than the average American... maybe just maybe, our system is better, and cheaper than having a boatload of insurances, and being denied proper healthcare if you can't afford it. 

[Spartan Erik]

Nothing is free... most of those places pay a huge amount of tax on their everyday lives/purchases.

 

Yup, but if you ask me it's definitely worth it.  I wish the US could switch to a single-payer model of sorts, not this weird hodge-podge of insurance and government subsidies.

 

The problem with our current state of healthcare is it's profit-driven, and that it's tied with employment.  You lose your job, you also lose your insurance.  It really shouldn't be the case.  In a perfect world, we would eliminate insurance from employment and raise wages instead.

 

Back to the OP:

The only reason this hospital is able to post these surgery prices is because you must pay out-of-pocket in advance in order to undergo these procedures.  This won't cause a bidding war.. many other hospitals still have insurance companies and the government reimbursements to deal with.  I assume that this hospital doesn't have an ER that accepts anyone regardless of ability to pay, otherwise the prices would be much higher.

[HawkMan]

Yup, but if you ask me it's definitely worth it.  I wish the US could switch to a single-payer model of sorts, not this weird hodge-podge of insurance and government subsidies.

 

The problem with our current state of healthcare is it's profit-driven, and that it's tied with employment.  You lose your job, you also lose your insurance.  It really shouldn't be the case.  In a perfect world, we would eliminate insurance from employment and raise wages instead.

 

Back to the OP:

The only reason this hospital is able to post these surgery prices is because you must pay out-of-pocket in advance in order to undergo these procedures.  This won't cause a bidding war.. many other hospitals still have insurance companies and the government reimbursements to deal with.  I assume that this hospital doesn't have an ER that accepts anyone regardless of ability to pay, otherwise the prices would be much higher.

 

Well the hospital does accept insurance, just not the government mandated insurance because it has clauses that denies this sort of crap. 

[Spartan Erik]

Well the hospital does accept insurance, just not the government mandated insurance because it has clauses that denies this sort of crap. 

 

It does, I should have clarified: the prices shown are based on cash out-of-pocket.  If you have insurance, the prices shown don't apply to you.  Hence my argument that this hospital won't start a bidding war that will suddenly cause healthcare prices to plummet.. this bidding war only works with hospitals that operate similarily to this one in Oklahoma.

[Hum]

 

 

The problem with our current state of healthcare is it's profit-driven, and that it's tied with employment.  You lose your job, you also lose your insurance.  It really shouldn't be the case.  In a perfect world, we would eliminate insurance from employment and raise wages instead.

 

 

In a perfect world, there would be far fewer people. ;)