[Jack]

I was kind of shocked, correction really shocked. No complications, in on Monday, out on Thursday. Price $68,801.68. This was at a in network local hospital that is a non-profit (no income tax, no property tax, etc) and owns various properties around town like Hotels. Back before Lyndon Johnson's 'Great Society' got ushered through Congress such a price might be remotely justified but now days they don't do that many gratis cases what with medicare and medicaid. They are so flush with cash they can't find stuff to spend it on. The management office level is decorated to the nines. Equipment is state-of-the-art.

One point I have heard is that Medicaid re-emburses between 50% and 60% of standard and acceptable charges and they make up the rest on folks like me with private insurance.

The surgeons fee was $16,108.00. The cost of the titanium bolts, and pins for my L5-S1 fusion was $25,247.00, probably less than a pounds worth. These are not lumped charges. I have 5 pages of charges for Labs, Anesthesia, anestheologist ($2,840.00) which could have been less since a nurse anesthesis actually did the case. Her pay did not come out of his.

What really lights my fire is the bogus charges. I was charged $148.00 per day for O2 but never used O2. A 1000 ltr bag of L-R is $70.75 plus hoses and needles and stick fee.

I just can't see how these charges could possibly be accurate unless the hospital is robbing from me to pay medicaid and ER hits from those without insurance. The hospital does eat those charges.

By the way, I'm a little leary about making an issue out of this but insurance hasn't paid yet. After that the risk of some sort of delay over this issue would be less.

No wonder insurance charges are so much for surgery.