A few weeks back I went to the doctor and in the waiting room I overheard a patient ask the front office staff how much his colonoscopy would cost him. The reply - “I don’t know, ask your insurance company.” But what if instead the answer was, “How much is it worth to you?”
That’s exactly what some doctors in California tried, just for a day.
These primary care doctors didn’t accept insured patients or those on Medicare and Medicaid for one day – only the uninsured. Patients were asked to give whatever they could afford or whatever they thought the care was worth.
While the docs felt great helping the uninsured community - patients didn’t come near covering what the services actually cost and the doctors ate the costs for the day – so this experiment turned into something unsustainable. The patients didn’t really know how much the health care really costs.
So this got me thinking… what if health care worked that way – offering what you could, and not worrying about the real cost? Unfortunately that’s not reality in any sector of our economy. Otherwise we would all live in nice homes, drive nice cars, and enjoy great restaurants, among other things.
But how much should we pay for health care? Well, unfortunately we have to pay what it really costs, and this experiment also demonstrated that no one really KNEW what it costs, which is part of the problem fueling rising health care costs.
None of us really know what it costs because “someone else” is covering it. In reality, we’re all covering it though – through rising premiums and higher doctor and hospital bills. Because when one person fails to pay the whole bill, the money has to come from somewhere, and everyone pays the rest.
Read more about physicians asking patients to pay for their care. And maybe you’ll think about it during your next treatment. I know I will.
