HPCI News: The Odd Math of Medical Tests: One Scan, Two Prices, Both High
To: Members and selected others
The New
York Times recently reported on the experience of a
retired New Jersey math professor who had two outpatient
echocardiograms in the past three years that scanned the
valves of his heart. The first, performed by a technician at
a community hospital near his home in central New Jersey,
lasted less than 30 minutes. The next, at a premier academic
medical center in Boston, took three times as long and
involved a cardiologist.
And yet, when he saw the
charges, the numbers seemed backward: The community hospital
had charged about $5,500, while the Harvard teaching
hospital had billed $1,400 for the much more elaborate test.
“Why would that be?” the man asked. “It really bothered me.”
Below is a listing of
echocardiogram prices for some greater Iowa hospitals taken
from the New York Times article
attachment. The source is Hospital Pricing Specialists.
$2,903 - Monroe County Hospital, Albia
$2,527 - Mercy Hospital, Council
Bluffs
$2,527 - Alegent Health Bergan Mercy, Omaha
$2,527 - Creighton University Medical Center, Omaha
$2,410 - Mercy Hospital, Cedar Rapids
$2,328 -
Mercy Hospital, Iowa City
$2,324 - Finley Hospital,
Dubuque
$2,203 - Methodist Hospital, Des Moines
$1,995 - St. Luke's Hospital, Cedar Rapids
$1,951
- U of I Hospitals and Clinics, Iowa City
$1,839 -
Genesis Medical Center, Davenport
$1,734 - Grinnell
Regional Medical Center, Grinnell
$1,622 - Pella
Regional Health Center, Pella
$1,550 - Gundersen
Health, LaCrosse, WI
$1,448 - St. Mary's Hospital,
Rochester, MN
$1,398 - Mercy Hospital, Des Moines
$1.232 - Mary Greeley Medical Center, Ames
$1,205
- Allen Memorial Hospital, Waterloo
$1,180 - Mercy
Medical Center, Sioux City
$977 - Winneshick
Hospital, Decorah
$945 - Sanford Health Network,
Sioux Falls, SD
$711 - Souixland Surgery Center,
Dakota Dunes, SD
$669 - Jennie Edmundson Hospital,
Council Bluffs
$253.57 - Portable X-Ray Inc., Des
Moines
$249.65 - St. Anthoney Hospital, Carroll
How can this wide variation be? The answer is coming in
a new report by the Iowa Employer Group. Stay tuned.
[Click to Read Full Story in New York Times]
[Click to View All Echocardiogram Prices by Individual U.S. Provider]
Paul M. Pietzsch, MPH
HPCI - IHBA Office
4430 Ashley Park Drive
West Des Moines, Iowa 50265
(515) 778-6300