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Old 01-18-2006, 07:10 PM
djscal djscal is offline
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Join Date: Apr 2005
Posts: 232
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Ezekiel,

The costs are all over the map. My surgery (single level) was billed at about $105,000. Cedars Sinai hospital (charged about 90k out of the 105k total) only received about $30,000 as that was the contracted rate with my insurance company. And the surgeons will get anywhere from $8k to $15k depending on who pays what on top of the $30k. So the negotiated cost of my surgery will be roughly $40k-$45k.

Cedars does NOT negotiate rates with individuals. So even though an insurance company will only have to pay them $30k, if you are on your own you would have to pay them the full rate of $90k (nice huh?). My surgeons also did a similar thing, although we made a financial agreement as a safety measure in case the insurance company wouldn't cough up.

So, as you see the prices can be very high or reasonable depending on which hospital you go to, if they are negotiable, which surgeon you go to and if they are negotiable as well. It never hurts to ask for a discount...

Dan
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Age 34
DDD L5-S1, bulge and Grade V annular tear.
SED 2/15/05 - no luck
Charite @ L5-S1 8/2/05 with Dr. Regan
Struggling with facet joint pain.
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