Health Care Cost Rant

Another health care cost rant. I wrote late last year about the high cost associated with a hospital stay and this is another high cost situation that really ticks me off.

Since the issue that put my husband in the hospital was a bad drug interaction between an anticoagulant and a heart regulating drug, he had to be taken off the heart drug and be put on an old-fashioned anticoagulant – Warfrin. This requires frequent blood tests and regular visits to a clinic which is a pain in the butt in and of its self, but the part that really makes me crazy is the bill for it.

The test takes place in what amounts to a small office with a desk, a computer, 3 chairs and a tiny tray of test items and takes a total of about 5 minutes, for the use of this room they charge our insurance $195.13 – you gotta be frickin kidding me!  $195.13 for the room only, the technicians time and the test are a separate line item. Our total co-insurance cost is: $25.04 and our insurance company actually pays them $141.86. So a $232.67 bill gets adjusted down to $176.90. $176.90 for a 5 minute test that involves pricking his finger, seeing where is anticoagulation level is and giving him his pill schedule for the next two weeks. So conservatively, they turn that room over 10 times in an hour or let’s even say 5 times in an hour, that is nearly $750/hour for that room or easily $7,500/day for a 10′ x 10′ room alone. For 4 days in ICU they say the bill was about $15,000 “retail” or about $3,600/day and that is a room with tons of equipment that is 4 times the size and a bathroom.

Ok, my rant for the day, but still don’t these things seem out of whack? Or am I wrong?