An Extraordinary and Surprising Experience with a Patient

You can dramatically reduce your hospital bills. Here Cato Institute adjunct scholar Jeffrey Singer explains:

The insurance policy, the clerk said, would pay up to $2,500 for the surgeon—more than enough—and up to $2,500 for the hospital’s charges for the operating room, nursing, recovery room, etc. The estimated hospital charge was $23,000. She asked him to pay roughly $20,000 upfront to cover the estimated balance.

My patient was stunned. I received a call from the admitting clerk informing me that he wanted to cancel the surgery, and explaining why. After speaking to the man alone and learning the nature of his insurance policy, I realized I was not bound by any “preferred provider” contractual arrangements and knew we had a solution.

I explained that just because he had health insurance didn’t mean he had to use it in every situation. After all, when people have a minor fender-bender, they often settle it privately rather than file an insurance claim. Because of the nature of this man’s policy, he could do the same thing for his medical procedure. However, had I been bound by a preferred-provider contract or by Medicare, I wouldn’t have been able to enlighten him.

Hospitals and other providers make their “list” prices as high as possible when negotiating contracts with health plans and Medicare regulators. No one is ever expected to pay the list price. Anybody who has seen an “Explanation of Benefits” statement from a health plan will note a very high charge from the provider, and an “adjusted charge” based upon the contracted fee schedule, which usually leaves the patient with little or nothing in out-of-pocket expenses. The only people routinely faced with list prices are those few people who have insurance like my patient’s—that doesn’t include a pre-negotiated fee schedule with contracted providers—or those who have no insurance.

Most people are unaware that if they don’t use insurance, they can negotiate upfront cash prices with hospitals and providers substantially below the “list” price. Doctors are happy to do this. We get paid promptly, without paying office staff to wade through the insurance-payment morass.

So we canceled the surgery and started the scheduling process all over again, this time classifying my patient as a “self-pay” (or uninsured) patient. I quoted him a reasonable upfront cash price, as did the anesthesiologist. We contacted a different hospital and they quoted him a reasonable upfront cash price for the outpatient surgical/nursing services. He underwent his operation the very next day, with a total bill of just a little over $3,000, including doctor and hospital fees. He ended up saving $17,000 by not using insurance.