More Unnecessary Healthcare Costs

I know readers probably don't want to hear the nitty gritty of my medical issues, but I have further detail on some of the excess costs related to my knee surgery and subsequent rehabilitation.

First as I've mentioned before, the surgery and hospital stay was $4,000, for which I paid nothing. Then there was the brace that cost $1,200, for which I paid $176 - strangely the approximate cost I found on the net for the brace itself. Finally, I have just been billed for some of my therapy sessions.

If I'm reading the bill right, it was about $1,000 for five sessions (I've had 22), for which I paid $20 a session. The bill I received was for $20 because I indeed did not pay one of the earlier co-pays. The eye catcher on the PT bill was of the $1,000, $130 was for ice packs. That is correct, ice packs!

So in conclusion, if I was paying for all of this myself with some combination of High Dollar insurance and medical savings account, I can tell you right now I would not need the medical supply company coming to deliver and fit my brace, and I sure as heck would ice my own knee! That alone would save $1,130.

Unbelievable! Price discovery is key to reducing healthcare costs. If prices were made available and there was a true market for these goods and services, paying our own way would seem far less daunting than it does today. The doctors and insurers make the market one of the most opaque in the world.

I'm not convinced the technological leap toward price discovery and a consumer market for healtchare is the chasm the pols claim!

-2outof4