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Comment by swozey | Hacker News Reader

I paid something like $800 for one crutch when I sprained my ankle once. Think another $300 for ibuprofen. Now I know why there's a crutch market on craigslist/thrift stores. Not sure what my insurance paid for xrays, etc, but my tab was something like $1100 for that ER rendezvous. Thought I broke my leg.

I had a laparoscopic surgery a few years ago that was $35k.

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Meanwhile, I got a doctor consultation and referral, X-rays, a temporary ankle brace, and two crutches, all for $240 from an urgent care clinic (no insurance help). That's an actually fair cost. Hospitals tend to be huge ripoffs but maybe not urgent care clinics.

My wife just got a replacement mask for her CPAP (that would run 120$ up here in Canada) for 10$ on wish - except for the packaging it appears to be absolutely identical.

there's a line item in the bill of $750 for "1mL iodine"

To put it in perspective, I broke my ankle 3 years ago, and in the end, I paid, from my own pocket, 45EUR. For 1 ER visit, x-rays, cast, a few follow-up consultations and renting crutches for a few weeks.

$800 for a crutch is insane. especially considering that one could do with some handy woodwork and some sticks if it was truly necessary.

to be fair, you paid a doctor to administer you a crutch and ibuprofen, I'm certain that's not the raw material cost.

That's not fair, because the doctor no-doubt billed separately.

I wish that was the case. If you sort the line items by cost, I would be surprised if labor was on top. Maybe for surgeries, but I doubt that.

My insurance got billed 6k for a chest ultra-sound. They paid 4k. Hospital still wanted around 2k, had to negotiate and pay a little over 1k at the end.

The line item for physician cost (billed separately) had 2 digits.

>If you sort the line items by cost..

Do you really think current health care is giving accurate line items on your bill?

Wouldn't a bill with inaccurate line items amount to a form of fraud?

separate line items, typically

Do you really think current health care is giving accurate line items on your bill?

Accurate or not clinician time is typically billed separately, as are drugs, individual procedures, equipment, etc. Some stuff is rolled up but not that much; hospital accounting systems are quite comprehensive and structured in such a way to help them argue with insurance companies.

So the argument that the crutch is expensive because an MD handed it to you probably doesn't hold, the clinician files something, probably under a CPT code, and you were billed for that separately.

This depends on the service of course, you may see say a CT scan where the room time & tech etc. are rolled into one item, but the radiologist review is separate. So it isn't just people vs. equipment, etc.

I never said it was the only reason. The reason it costs so much is because you aren't paying for the raw material. You're paying for a service. That service happens to be laughably bad and expensive, but that's what you're paying for.

I don't understand your contention then, as this was a response to a very specific scenario that does not happen in practice.

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