Interesting article about surgery charge

Started by anbuitachi
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anbuitachi said:
www.cbsnews.com

Most expensive medical procedures in the U.S., ranked

These pricey surgeries are the most expensive in the country.
www.cbsnews.com www.cbsnews.com

i dont know much about billing. maybe some of you can make some comments on this. not sure how accurate this. didnt know trach pays THAT much?
Click to expand...

It's not accurate. A trach is like 10 RVUs. A CABG is around 70 RVUs. The authors of the article probably looked at a DRG or a total hospital stay for a sepsis admission in which the only procedure the pt got was a tracheostomy during an exorbitantly expensive 3 wk ICU stay, and then they confused the total bill with the surgical procedure.
 
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vector2 said:
It's not accurate. A trach is like 10 RVUs. A CABG is around 70 RVUs. The authors of the article probably looked at a DRG or a total hospital stay for a sepsis admission in which the only procedure the pt got was a tracheostomy during an exorbitantly expensive 3 wk ICU stay, and then they confused the total bill with the surgical procedure.
Click to expand...

Yet another example the reason why the veracity of source data matters.
 
anbuitachi said:
www.cbsnews.com

Most expensive medical procedures in the U.S., ranked

These pricey surgeries are the most expensive in the country.
www.cbsnews.com www.cbsnews.com

i dont know much about billing. maybe some of you can make some comments on this. not sure how accurate this. didnt know trach pays THAT much?
Click to expand...
Don't confuse the hospital fee for the proceduralists fee.

The hospital lobby is always lobbying ti increase their fee while lowering the proceduralists fee.
 
Trump ordered hospitals to post their Chargemaster on their websites, so local data is available to all of us. At my hospitals, it’s almost hidden, at the very bottom of the website, but it’s “find-able”.

Re: Trach specifically, a trach bumps the patient to the highest or 2nd highest DRG. So (I suspect) that the charges reported in this article are influenced not by the trach itself, but rather the other factors associated with the need for a trach & trach care (e.g.: ICU stay, vent charge, resp therapy & associated charges, etc).

For Medicare, heart transplant with major complication (trach, need for MCS, etc) is the highest reimbursement case, and at our place, has the highest average hospital bill/charges. Liver transplant and ECMO are waaaay up the list, too.
 
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