This Doctor Posts All His Prices. And His Business Is Booming.

[Celebration]

Link

About a year before the birth of Obamacare, Dr. Keith Smith, director of the Surgery Center of Oklahoma, posted all the prices for his center’s surgeries online.

Today he’s expanding, looking to build two more operating rooms. His fastest-growing group of patients? Obamacare enrollees.

Though they have Obamacare health insurance plans, many patients are saddled with high deductibles. Looking for alternatives, some travel across the country to the Surgery Center, where the cost of airfare care and travel together is less than the deductibles on their Affordable Care Act plans.

The Surgery Center of Oklahoma is physician-owned. It doesn’t take Medicare or Medicaid and only selectively works with private insurance plans. Patients pay in cash or with cashier’s checks.

[msongs]

1. as part of licensing require fees posting by all dentists, doctors, etc. competition is good right?

[cbayer]

2. He caters to the rich.

By not taking medicaid or medicare, he limits his practice to the well heeled who can pay him out of pocket.

And as the article states, he can also get away with not having to comply with the regulations that are in place for most facilities.

I think one should look at this with a very jaded eye. Posting prices doesn't mean anything.

[Celebration]

3. I think it fills a need

These patients aren't necessarily rich, but obviously they aren't poor. Many are middle class, and can only afford high deductible policies. It is a good answer to the exhorbitant fees that hospitals charge, a lot of which go not into patient care but profits for the hospital.

We have a huge problem still with health care cost. This is one small way to address it. It certainly isn't going to solve all our health care problems, but this model may be a small part of keeping hospital costs down through competition.

[cbayer]

4. It fills a need for people with disposable income who want

to have something done in an environment where they won't be exposed to the riff raff.

Its worse that boutique medicine, which has gotten tons of criticism around here.

It's not a good answer at all. It doesn't address the problem at all.

Hospitals will negotiate rates for things that you can plan in advance for. This guys rates are not necessarily competitive. His advertising is actually kind of sickening.

But if you have an emergency or medicaid or medicare or pretty much any other insurance, they won't even pick up the phone of you.

I promise you that most of what he does is elective.

It's pretty disgusting, actually.

[Celebration]

5. There is room

For both elective surgery in surgery centers and emergency treatment in hospitals. And most people would have no idea how to bargain with a hospital on rates. If they want to compete they can publish their rates. Hospitals are headed by CEOs that make bonuses by cutting labor costs. This center is owned by the doctors! No CEOs, shareholders ripping us off.

[cbayer]

6. I don't think you see my point.

When you create a system that only a certain portion of the population can access, you have trouble. That's what is wrong with our current system. This only exacerbates it.

Some hospitals do publish their rates, but those rates are generally set by the insurance industry and can vary a lot.

Please. These may be doctors, but they also have a CEO and I guarantee you that they are a for profit corporation. And they might also have shareholders, but I feel very sure that their physician employees are making a bundle. By avoiding all indigent care and emergency care, they avoid the losses that every other facility and practitioner has to take.

This is lipstick on a pig. Don't fall for it.

[Celebration]

7. Indigent care

Should be financed by taxes, not by price gouging the public for gallstone removal.

[cbayer]

8. Indigent care should be paid for by taxes, but it isn't.

Until the system is fixed and we have a single payer with full coverage for all, it is wrong for some to treat those that can pay and set up a system where they can avoid taking anyone who can't pay them.

That puts the burden on the rest of the system. By completely avoiding taking any patients who can't pay them or insurances that don't cover the actual costs, these people clearly can charge less.

It's a mess. This is not a solution at all.

[Celebration]

9. So two wrongs make a right?

I don't think so. Agree to disagree.

I agree it is a mess!