8/17/2023 0 Comments Basha diagnostics ct scan cost![]() "So they can raise their rates, and they still do OK."Īnderson says his research shows hospital consolidation has been driving prices higher and higher in recent years. ![]() So by having a dominant position, they have great bargaining power," Anderson says. "Anybody who's in Fort Myers is going to want to get care at these hospitals. When you drive around Fort Myers, the blue-green Lee Health logo appears on buildings everywhere. It also owns several physician practices in the area. Lee Health owns the four major hospitals in the Fort Myers area, as well as a children's hospital and a rehabilitation hospital, according to its website. The higher price from Gulf Coast and its parent company could be a result of their enormous pricing power in Fort Myers, says Gerard Anderson, a professor of health policy and management at Johns Hopkins University. Healthcare Bluebook, an online pricing tool, says the range for an abdominal CT scan with contrast, like Hynden had, in Fort Myers is between $474 and about $3,700. She says hospitals also try to get as much money as they can out of private insurance companies to offset lower reimbursements from Medicare and Medicaid.Įven in that context, the price of Hynden's hospital CT scan was high. "Often those people are what they call in the lingo 'frequent flyers,' " Ellerin says. "Emergency department charges reflect the high cost of maintaining the staffing, medical expertise, equipment, and infrastructure, on a 24/7-basis, necessary for any possible health care need - from a minor injury to a gunshot wound or heart attack to a mass casualty event."ĭo the hospital's costs and preparations justify a list price that's so much higher than the nearby imaging center's tab? We asked some experts in medical billing and management for their thoughts.Įmergency rooms often charge people with insurance a lot of money to make up for the free care they provide to uninsured patients, says Bunny Ellerin, director of the Health Care and Pharmaceutical Management program at Columbia Business School in New York. "Generally that it is not unusual for the cost of providing a CT scan in an emergency department to be higher than in an imaging center," the statement said. Hynden got his October scan at Summerlin Imaging Center, a stand-alone facility in Fort Myers that offers a range of diagnostic tests, including X-rays, MRI and CT scans. Medical procedure: A CT scan, which uses X-rays to create cross-sectional images of the body. Service provider: Gulf Coast Medical Center, owned by Lee Health, the dominant health care system in southwest Florida. Total bill: $10,174.75, including $8,897 for a CT scan of the abdomen. Patient: Benjamin Hynden, 29, a financial adviser in Fort Myers, Fla. The results were also the same as the October scan: Hynden was sent home without a definitive diagnosis. It was the same kind of scanner, he said. The triage nurse told him the problem wasn't his appendix, but she suggested he stick around for some additional tests – including another CT scan - just to be safe. Hynden arrived later that morning at Gulf Coast Medical Center, one of several hospitals owned by Lee Health in the Fort Myers, Fla., area. "When he told me to go to the ER, I felt compelled to take his advice." ![]() "I was a little worried," Hynden recalls.
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