What Health Procedures Cost and Why You Should Care

Filed in archive Health on May 16, 2007

A few years ago I was woefully underinsured with a high deductible for the measly health insurance I did have. Basically I had bought a catastrophic policy in case I fell off a bridge or something, but I wasn't getting much coverage otherwise. I can't remember what I needed done, possibly a mole removal, but here's the conversation I had with the person at my doctor's office:

ME: Can you tell me what that would cost?

HER: We can't tell you what it costs until after it's been done.

ME: Well, I'd like to have an idea of what it costs BEFORE it's done so I can make some decisions on when to have it done. You can't even give me a ballpark on what this would cost?

HER: We won't know until after the doctor sees it and decides what to do about it.

ME: Fine, but you can't even give me a ballpark estimate here on what the general cost is?

HER: No, we can't. Why do you care about the cost? Your insurance will pay for it.

ME: No, my insurance won't pay for it. That's why I need to know what it costs.

This went on for a couple of more minutes and not once would she give me any idea of what the procedure cost. What really burned me up was the question about why I cared about the cost when insurance would just handle it all. It's like the medical and insurance professions have just decided no one but them needs to bother with this stuff, but in the meantime millions of people have no health insurance and get jacked-up rates when they need health care because they don't get the discounted rate that insurance companies get from doctors and hospitals.

But it's getting harder and harder to be one of those blissfully unaware people when it comes to health care. Because no matter who you are, more and more of the cost of health care is being pushed onto your shoulders. Your job may not offer health insurance, or, if it does, it's probably making you pay more for it than in the past, or maybe the company's not paying into it at all, but simply giving you a small break on the insurance by allowing you to get into the company's group plan (which is usually cheaper than an individual policy).

If it hasn't happened yet, it won't be long before all of us are asking doctors and hospitals what a procedure costs before they just get started, assuming that our insurance will take care of it and so there's no need to bother discussing it.

What started me on this rant was actually something good I found. It's a site called Vimo, which shows you the costs of many different hospital procedures, including the nationwide averages, who's cheapest, which hospitals do the procedures the most, and what kind of negotiated discount you can expect to get if you end up paying out of pocket for this stuff.

The site needs to beef up its stats to be truly useful across the board, but it already offers a lot, and I'm sure it will grow and have even more information over time. In a future where more and more of us will have to think about the costs of our health care, Vimo and its inevitable competitors could make the slog through comparison shopping for health care a lot easier.