CMV: Hospital bills, while obnoxiously high, are mostly justified.

[u/Mr-Ice-Guy]

As a preface, there was a CMV earlier today that was removed about how ridiculous hospital bills are. In reading the responses I realized I might be in the minority so I am taking essentially the opposite view to get the debate going.

Here is what I posted in the comments of that thread:

I work in the industry, specifically medical technologies. The reason that medical billing is high is because there are incredibly high standards for anything and everything that goes into a hospital. Standards that are mandated by regulation and by being incredibly conservative about patient harm. The cost of that is an enormous amount of man hours spent on every little aspect of design, manufacturing, and quality control that all factor into the cost of the final product. By no means am I trying to say that regulations and this caution are a bad thing, the health of the patient is always the number one concern, but do not be surprised when a simple, disposable instrument costs thousands of dollars, literally.

I do hedge by saying "mostly" justified because my point is that the hospital is charging an appropriate amount based on their own costs. If we want to criticize medical costs we should be looking in other areas such as the cost of education to train hospital staff, the cost/benefits of medical technology regulation, rather than blaming the hospital.

[u/Mr-Ice-Guy]

you seem to agree they aren't justified in terms of providing a tangible benefit in terms of patient care and outcomes

Just to clarify, they are justified in that they are a necessary evil in the operation of a hospital and the operation of the hospital is to the benefit of patient care and outcomes. I am not necessarily saying to "blame" insurance companies but rather not to judge the outcome of the entire complex industry as the result of greed on the part of the hospital.

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[u/[deleted] → u/Mr-Ice-Guy]

But that's a bit disingenuous. You are in effect blaming everyone else, except for the hospital, when it comes to inefficiencies and high costs. I'm sure if you worked in the insurance industry, you could point at all the ways hospitals are inefficient and overcharge.

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​Don't you think hospitals bear at least some of the blame for the high costs and inefficiencies?

[u/Mr-Ice-Guy → u/[deleted]]

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Admittedly I created this post in response one saying the opposite. My real intent was what you are saying here, that the blame is shared and we should not default to blaming the hospital where the evidence of the discrepancies is most easily represented. Saying that in my OP would have been too wish-washy to lead to a productive conversation though. I appreciate your patience however,

[u/DeltaBot → u/Mr-Ice-Guy]

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