Why is hospital food so crappy?

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Habeed

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A while back, I had the misfortune of spending about 10 days in the hospital. The institution was Herman Hospital in Houston, Texas, with a Level 1 Trauma center and supposedly a top rated orthopedics unit.

The food was crap. It would be delivered, a couple of hours late, and had the nutritional value of McDonalds. I recall receiving a philly cheese steak, all sorts of unpalatable "jello cups", and often fried/breaded chicken. There would be far too many refined carbs, nothing was fresh, and very little protein.

The low protein was what really upset me...here I was, trying to recover from a serious injury, and my body is supposed to repair itself by tearing down my existing muscles? That's stupid.

On top of that, my GI slowed to a crawl from all the narcotics, so some frakkin fiber would have really helped. Was there shredded wheat? No-O, tasteless gruel in for breakfast instead. (arriving at about 10am)

Further, sodium levels, ect were way out of whack. Naturally, I happened to have my birthday in the hospital...and they auto-delivered a chocolate frosted birthday cake, a solid pound of refined sugar and trans-fats. Gee, thanks...that really helps. No wonder acutely ill inpatients get so frakkin fat.

So guess what my bill was...

$100,000. $80k of that was the hospital, $20k the two surgeons who worked on me.

About $50,000 was paid by my insurance. Over 10 days, that means the hospital had about $4000 a day. They could have flown in Gordan Ramsey to cook me and 10 other patients meals and not significantly increased the bill.

I mean, they could have catered in Olive Garden for no more than $30 a day.

So it's not JUST that the food was crap. It was flat out dangerously poor nutrition! And for more money per day than the most expensive resort in the world!

What sort of "economics" causes this kind of craziness?

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Somebody has to pay for all of those people who dont have insurance; poor, homeless, blah blah blah. Guess who footed part of the bill?





Thats right, its you.

I had a pilondial cyst removed, I spent no more than 2 hours in the hospital. Cost? 8,000 bucks, which around 500 went to the surgeon...yeah health care economics is quite painful.
 
There is zero economic incentive to improve the food. You were in a trauma. You were transported there. It's not like you were going to leave (or could).
 
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BTW, if you paid 20k to the surgeons... you got jipped.. i worked for one year as a colorectal surgery fellow and i never saw a reimburisement to my program director over $2000. More than 90% of the amount you pay in a hospital goes to the hospital... the bill to the physicians is very very low... even surgeons. A consultant fee usually will costs around $150. A gall bladder removal is usually $700 fee for the surgeon and $700 to the anesthesiologist.

$50k is 50% of the cost the hospital asked the insurance to pay.... You're lucky they let you eat, heh! You want to eat a pizza next time? Tell the surgeon/resident to have it in the order sheet that its okay to order your own food... call a pizza place and have them deliver. Ahhh.. but now that requires you actually spend your money, not the insurance money.
 
Faebinder : each surgeon billed 10k. One did about an hour of orthopedics work, the other performed 2 operations on the plastics side. My insurance paid 50% of that, or about 4-5k each. I would guess the reason you didn't see that much money is that the reimbursements for orthopods/plastics are much higher for the same amount of work.

Personally, I think that is stupid : the market should have some role in determining what surgeons are paid, not some committee in closed door meetings.

Yes, the hospital asked for 80k, and was paid a little over 40k. As for food : actually, friends brought in food from the outside, which was vastly superior. I just felt like I was massively ripped off : 40k spent on my behalf, and the food was worse than in the Army. It was probably worse than prison food...
 
Not all hospital food is bad. It's not too bad at my base hospital, actually, I'd even call it pretty good.
 
Quality food varies. The hospital I was at today had excellent food (for hospital food). In fact, the residents were looking forward to lunch because it was pretty good. I can't say why there is such variation in quality of food. The only thing I can think of is that some hospitals spend more money on food than others, and they may hire better cooks, or have a superior kitchen which allows for large portions to be cooked without compromising quality (too much).
 
My hospital has tasty food. It's pretty much the only reason why I never miss a grand rounds (I'm a statistician, not required to attend rounds). I'm not sure if the employees are getting the same food the patients get, though, since most of them are on immunocompromised diets (it's a cancer center).
 
Mayo Clinic's is the shiznit. Random people and businessmen go there for lunch and sometimes Mayo has to stop people from trying to eat there! But when you're Mayo, everything is good and its hard to compare it to just any hospital.
 
they are thinking of removing the canteen completely in our hospital. that would leave us with a microwave ONLY to make our food on breaks, or cold junk from the machines.

even though the canteen food is poor, at least its hot, and gives you the boost to keep you on your toes on a long shift. and not all of it is bad.
 
It really does vary from place to place. The big famous teaching hospital in our town has "okay" stuff, there's good variety and some of it can be healthy but its not prepared well. However, the other "average" hospital in town which has less doctors and less services has fantastic food and great rooms and service. Why is this, you ask?

Someone said it above, but they hit the nail on the head so great I'm going to repeat it. The famous teaching hospital doesn't need great food. It's a level 1 trauma: if you get in a car wreck or fall, you're coming here. For some specialties they're the only game in town so if you need certain surgeries or to see certain specialists, you're going there because you don't have a choice.

The other place, though, makes money on comfort. If you're getting your gallbladder out, why not go to the place with the nicer rooms, better TV's, and better foods? Even if the doctors aren't as up to date on practice or don't have all the fancy stuff the other hospital does, a lot of patients consider it "the better hospital" because it's "fancier".
 
agreed
 
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