Glens Falls Hospital, and every other hospital in the country, on Jan. 1 published a list of prices for every medical procedure offered. They were required to by law.
But the so-called “chargemaster” list does not show real prices. Instead, it shows the starting price that each hospital begins with before negotiating with health insurance companies.
In other words, the prices are the worst possible scenario: most procedures should cost less in reality.
How do you get the real price?
You can’t just ask your health insurance company for those negotiated rates, although United Health Care offers some prices online on a “price calculator” for members only.
United Health Care refused to give out a price over the phone for even one medical code this week.
“You could ask the provider for an estimate, but the only way you’ll really know is at the end when they bill you,” said an employee at United Health Care, who asked to be anonymous because she was not authorized to speak to the press.
That can be a serious problem for patients who have large deductibles. If a patient’s deductible is $2,000, one could argue it doesn’t matter how much more the procedure costs: the patient is only going to pay $2,000.
But for those who have much higher deductibles — $10,000 is not unheard of — the cost can matter a great deal.
Patients with medical problems that are not emergencies may want to compare prices to select the cheapest provider, but it’s not easy. Glens Falls Hospital listed its procedures by narrative and by medical code, making it fairly easy to search. But Saratoga Hospital used completely different codes and published its list in a non-searchable document, making it much harder to compare procedures.
And even if a patient wants to go to the cheapest location, there are other factors to consider, ranging from where their doctor can practice to the safety ratings of the facility.
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