Kansas Health

More hospital pricing controversy

[Laurie Roberts, "Hospitals pad patients' bills because they can," The Arizona Republic, 1 January 2005.]

The fact that hospitals routinely charge the uninsured far more than those with insurance has raised the attention of the media and even the threat of legal action. More trouble for hospitals seems on its way as tales on par with the $600 toilet seats at the Pentagon begin to surface:

Comes now the sequel to the great T-shirt scam of 2004.

You may recall the story of 14-year-old Matt Blumenreich and the unfortunate slide into home plate that left him with a fractured vertebrae and his father, Alan, with an even bigger pain: the bill.

To wit: two "torso socks" (read: T-shirts) that cost $278 apiece, courtesy of Phoenix Children's Hospital.

A hospital spokeswoman declined to discuss it, citing patient privacy, and in fact, declined even to talk in general about how a glorified T-shirt, one that retails for under $20, could possibly cost $278. She did say the hospital would be contacting Blumenreich.

They did. The message: Pay up. "The story is that they've looked into it," Blumenreich said. "They've checked out the amounts, and this is what the stuff is charted at, and Blue Cross didn't have a problem, and therefore you shouldn't have a problem, so pay your bill."

To be fair, Phoenix Children's isn't the only medical outfit to don a mask when it mails out the bills. After writing about the $278 T-shirts, examples poured in. There was the $28 toothbrush. The $61 IV needle (not the bag, not the tubing, not the medication, just the needle). There was the $19.95 raised toilet seat that suddenly cost $96 when the drugstore billed Medicare.

There was the $57 paper hospital gown and the $265 gelatin sponge. "That's got to be some fancy sponge," said Rick Hallick, who got zinged for both during a recent stay at Tempe St. Luke's.

Hospital administrators must begin to address the public relations storm headed their way. As consumer-driven health care options increase, however, price transparency will become far more in demand and this type of abuse will be more difficult to perpetrate.