
I tried to find out how much my son's birth would cost. No one would tell me - lkurtz
http://www.vox.com/2016/5/5/11591592/birth-cost-hospital-bills
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anywhichway
My company has developed several tools to answer these kinds of questions. One
of which is publicly available and done for a non-profit:
[http://guroo.com](http://guroo.com), which lacks provider specific detail,
but has averages for many different types of services by geographic area. It
is a neat tool, that is a step in the right direction, but is unfortunately
not very actionable. The data is based on 40 million insured individuals.

Another tool has provider specific detail, but is only available to the
members of select insurance companies. It uses data specific to that company's
historic provider data and negotiated rates.

More employers are moving to high deductible health plans with health savings
accounts and are looking for insurance companies to provide more tools to help
guide members choices. Giving members increased incentives to make good
healthcare decisions doesn't do any good unless the members have the tools
needed to make informed decisions.

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devhead
the real answer is: they will charge as much as your insurance will accept.
Then your insurance will "negotiate" a lower amount based on their leverage,
data and other closely guarded policies.

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coreyp_1
If the FTC can force Funeral Homes to make their prices public
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Funeral_Rule](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Funeral_Rule)),
then why can't they do the same for hospitals?

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mikeyouse
Because a funeral is 1 service and something like a birth could be 100
different services with different experts and requirements that are impossible
to predict beforehand..

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coreyp_1
I understand that entirely. But not publishing their prices before hand _at
all_ seems to me, in a word, deceptive.

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mikeyouse
In theory, the hospital should be able to provide a minimum price based on the
standard order set for labor and delivery -- "If you have a natural birth in
the hospital, and you spend 1 day in the room, 2 days in recovery, only use
these drugs and receive these tests, your visit will cost $XX." But that isn't
really helpful since most births will vary a substantial amount from the
'basic' plan. This gets back to why insurance exists in the first place, if
the average price for 10 births is $10,000 -- that could be 10 births at $10k
or 9 births at $1k and one at $91k or literally anywhere in between.

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sportanova
but that data could be really useful - the average cost is $x, the median is
$y, and you could do standard deviations too. Or you could give even more
detailed info

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doctorwho
As a Canadian this is something that would have never crossed my mind. I just
go to the hospital/doctor without any thought of how much it's going to cost
me. I suppose this is why "home birth" became a thing.

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woodandsteel
Can't find out medical prices? But conservatives tell us again and again that
we have by far the best medical delivery system in the world. I guess the
conclusion is that medical corporations (which is what hospitals are these
days) work better when they don't have to reveal what they are charging.

