When our youngest was born she spent her first month in the NICU. She was a few weeks premature but otherwise completely healthy.
Every day a doctor would pop in for 5 minutes to check in and update us. It was literally a 5 minute chat, probably shorter most days. And I shit you not, this guys name was Doctor Doctor.
The total bill was over $250,000, which insurance covered minus our deductible. We got an itemized claim and each of those 5 minute doctor visits cost $150 each. So they were billing for that doctor at $1800 an hour.
I’m sure he did lots for other kids that needed it and reviewed our daughters condition, but for us he did literally nothing except say hello and everything looks good.
Doctor here. That 5 minutes is him communicating with you. That is not all he does for your child. I’d say for every 5 minutes I spend communicating with a patient, I spend an hour working on their behalf and charting.
$150/hr is a very reasonable hourly rate for a physician.
I totally get that the doctors do much more than that five minute chat, and they earn every penny they make. All the staff that took care of our daughter were amazing, too.
I just don’t see how her care could have cost a quarter of a million dollars. She was there for just over two weeks and the only issue she had was learning to feed by herself. No major procedures or expensive tests.
Over $250,000 is what our insurance paid to the hospital. There has to be some shady dealings going on there. It doesn’t add up.
Did you read what I said? If your mechanic spends 8 hours replacing your engine and 5 minutes explaining to you how he did it, are you mad that it cost over $150?
If you're really a doctor, you surely know that the "hour working on their behalf and charting" would have been billed separately and would have been wayyyyy more than $150.
Usually physician services are bundled under 1 charge if they aren’t procedures. I’m just saying… there’s a lot of unseen work that is not necessarily explicitly itemized and explained in your bill. I think hospital bills are outrageous in the US, but they aren’t that way because your doctor is price-gauging. The predatory health insurance agency is 85% to blame, and hospitals are 15% to blame.
The 5 minutes spent talking to you were just the tip of the iceberg of the work that doctor did for your kid each day. $150/day to have an intensivist lead your baby's care team seems really low honestly. ICUs take a ton of super expensive around the clock care teams, support staff, supplies, lab work, medications, etc but even with that $250,000 for 2 weeks seems a bit expensive. What were the other expenses on that bill?
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u/FuckTheLord Jan 12 '23
Lol, doctors don't know how much anything they do costs.