296
submitted 3 weeks ago by MicroWave@lemmy.world to c/news@lemmy.world

Hospitals adding charge to bills from doctors’ offices, outpatient surgical clinics and diagnostic centers they own

Hospitals are gobbling up doctor’s offices – and they’re bringing higher prices to patients when they do, even if a patient never sets foot on a hospital campus.

Enter the “hospital facility fee”: a charge hospitals can add to bills from doctors’ offices, outpatient surgical clinics and diagnostics centers that they own, rebranding them as “outpatient hospital departments”, even if the facility is miles from a hospital campus.

It’s one of the most egregious examples of hospital financing at the expense of consumers,” said Liz Hagan, director of policy solutions at the United States of Care, a non-profit advocacy group that released a new report on the practice.

The report, “Behind the Bill” argues that “hospitals are at the center of a massive market failure”, where consolidation is driving price hikes for patients.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] PunnyName@lemmy.world 118 points 3 weeks ago

US healthcare is extortion.

[-] RestrictedAccount@lemmy.world 41 points 3 weeks ago

Give me all your money or I will let you die!

How dare you question my integrity as a Doctor!!!!!!!!!

[-] disguy_ovahea@lemmy.world 63 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

It’s not the doctors. It’s their corporate overlords. Doctors are getting fucked by the system too. I have a friend that decided to become a doctor after already attending three years of college. By the time he was a resident, he realized he’d never be able to pay off his student loans with an internist’s income, and had to go back to med school for a specialty.

He also said that his first medical group was so scummy that they held regular meetings about the doctor’s reviews. No, not their treatment records or patient comments, the fucking reviews on ratemydoc and Google. Someone complained that he didn’t prescribe antibiotics even though the patient “knew” they had an infection, and the advisors straight up told him to prescribe them if someone asks for them moving forward. It’s fucking gross.

[-] RestrictedAccount@lemmy.world 11 points 3 weeks ago

I am just a consumer of medicine, so this is second hand.

I live i a pretty big city that you have heard of.

We have two mega corporations that bought up the hospitals and then went for the doctors offices and specialties.

Let’s call them Corp A and Corp B.

Corp A was appreciably better in quality than Corp B but corporations are going to cut costs and race to the bottom.

The doctors in my city just quit and started their own companies. They are excellent.

Now Corp A has an excuse to focus on patient care and they are pretty dang good.

Corp B still sucks. I feel bad for the people who have to go there.

[-] Feliskatos@lemmy.world -2 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

It’s not the doctors. It’s their corporate overlords. ...

I'm reminded of the Stanford Prison Experiment. The doctors are just doing what they're told!

[-] disguy_ovahea@lemmy.world 8 points 3 weeks ago

Most don’t. They can’t get fired for dismissing medical advice from a non-medical advisor. My point is they are getting screwed by the corporations as well, and have no say or control over billing systems. Starting a private practice is a massive risk unless the doctor is independently wealthy, so most of them have no choice but to accept jobs in corporate medicine.

[-] Feliskatos@lemmy.world 1 points 3 weeks ago

My point was we are almost all prisoners of the corporatocracy. If you're lucky and born into extreme wealth then you can escape the need for employment.

this post was submitted on 09 Jun 2024
296 points (99.0% liked)

News

21742 readers
3384 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil


Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.


2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.


Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.


3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.


Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.


4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.


Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.


5. Only recent news is allowed.


Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.


6. All posts must be news articles.


No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.


7. No duplicate posts.


If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.


8. Misinformation is prohibited.


Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.


9. No link shorteners.


The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.


10. Don't copy entire article in your post body


For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS