r/HospitalBills • u/Old_Glove9292 • 12d ago

A $101,000 knee replacement? Why hospital charges vary so much.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2025/08/18/why-hospital-charges-prices-vary-cost/85656566007/
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u/saysee23 12d ago

So the prices vary. Duh.

So do the patients, complications, surgeons, materials....

Let's take the material - ceramic? Metal? Which has the best biocompatibility for the patient? How we securing it? Is this knee going to support an 18 year old for 70 years? Or a 70 year old for 18 with less stress on the joints? First surgery on this knee? Other replacements in the patient?

You want 1 option for all. Sure, that will be cheaper. Probably not as successful.

One size does not fit all.

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u/Old_Glove9292 12d ago

Except the study being cited demonstrates that this variability is not across patients, but rather across hospital systems. And the researchers are not the first to identify and describe this phenomena. Here are just a few other examples, but this list is by no means exhaustive:

Some Michigan hospitals marking up drug prices by up to 800%, report finds

Hospital prices for the same emergency care vary up to 16X, study finds

Even at elite hospitals, the prices make no sense

Insurance companies aren't the main villain of the U.S. health system

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u/saysee23 12d ago

Well... Trauma- they stated patients taken to closest hospital. Common. If the closest isn't a trauma center, they may transfer the pt to trauma center because they do not have - on site trauma surgeon/OR/diagnostics inc CT. So the lower acuity hospital will charge less than the trauma center- usually major hospitals/universities (which accounts for some of the other articles you cited for price differences). And that 1st price is what is averaged because when they arrive at the 2nd location it's a different code because they've been evaluated by a physician.

"The median price of a stent or balloon angioplasty was $657 at the Cleveland Clinic but $25,521 at Cedars-Sinai hospital." - no one wants the $657 stent. And Cleveland Clinic has more Medicaid patients, causing the average to be lower. Insurance was noted when averages were calculated.

Medicare has a standard price. EVERYTHING revolves around that price. Everything . . Some insurance companies negotiate different prices with their customers (employers are a large %). Some services cost more depending on availability, demand - do you want to force Drs to live/work in certain areas to equal all that out??? Some hospitals/providers write off balances so that's a $0, but not everyone qualifies for that.

This is NOT comparing 16oz Peter Pan prices between all the major groceries. That's not a "phenomena" .. it's how business is done.

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u/Old_Glove9292 12d ago

Honestly, this is just a jumbled word salad, lacking any logical structure or intellectual rigor. It's fairly obvious that you're bending over backwards to defend providers at all costs, and as such, your arguments ring hollow. You clearly don’t understand English well enough to know what “phenomena” means, and your grasp of business is quite limited as well. You seem to believe that your insider knowledge of healthcare makes you an expert on such matters, but in reality, you’ve only learned a narrow set of patterns unique to the industry—not the broader principles of business, finance, and economics that would allow you to put them in perspective. Otherwise, you would recognize the patent absurdity embodied in your statements.

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u/saysee23 12d ago

So no valid arguments, just complaining about my response. . I don't care what you think about me.

You bringing attention to the fact prices vary isn't earth shattering. The article you provided was definitely slanted. It's important to know there are other sides to the story, things they left out.

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u/Old_Glove9292 12d ago

Why do you think any of the five articles that I shared with you are "slanted"? Because they present facts or conclusions that you don't like?

I'm not picking apart your argument, because I know you're arguing in bad faith and it's a waste of time and energy. Your argument more-or-less amounts to "it's complicated" with a strong ethos of "only people in healthcare will understand", which is more of a cop out than an argument. You seem to possess some combination of the following beliefs-- 1) that this absurd level of complexity and lack of transparency is necessary and there's nothing that can be done to fix it 2) that there's nothing wrong with it and the system is working just fine 3) only people invested in the current system are allowed to critique it-- I categorically reject all of these positions, because they're less about finding a solution, and more about shutting down any perspectives that run counter to the accepted narratives within the healthcare industry (i.e. they're bad faith arguments)

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u/saysee23 12d ago

Slanted because they highlight that there is such a huge difference in pricing because our health care system is bad. Without taking into consideration any necessary aspects of the equation. There was no conclusion in any article I read. It's not about what I like or don't. I see that it is incomplete. It's opinion based.

You could just as easy change the headline to: The cost of a hamburger varies across the United States. Some burgers are $5 where some can cost $30. We used to get the same burger for 99 cents. Same, right?

My argument is not in bad faith, I gave examples of parts of the equations that have to be considered. None of the articles provide a solution, probably because they did not isolate a problem. What problem are you highlighting? The overall cost? The cost prior to insurance? It's medication, there isn't a uniform, generic solution to increasing costs.