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you're right about the hidden costs not mentioned in the article. He stayed at the hospital for 2 days, consulted with doctors, and received medication. this is why the bill is so high.

however, an x-ray should cost around $200. there's no need for an "expert" medical billing administrator here, $200 is double or triple the price of an x-ray in many european countries, and many facilities in america (where the youtuber lives) will charge less than $1000.

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So, an x-ray machine costs $5-10M to purchase. That's just the capital cost. You operate it 8 hours a day, 6 days a week, 50 weeks a year- that's 2400 x-rays. So the amortized cost for one X-ray over a year is $2400. But! The x-ray machine runs on special generator power because it's expensive to shut these machines down, and it's run by a fulltime tech, and the hospital has many other expenses related to your visit. This is why hospitals run their x-ray machines at such a high rate of utilization- to amortize the capital costs. NOte that x-ray machines in modern hospitals aren't cheap off the shelf units- they're major installations which require dedicated rooms with shielding, etc, etc.

$200 is the out of pocket cost. Your government has already prenegotiated some payment details that you couldn't see.

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