You may have heard by now that hospital bills are somewhat unreasonable. They come from multiple vendors, the amounts are unconnected with reason, and there is always at least one more.
No business could deal with such a situation. “Chargemaster” is what hospitals call their published prices. Insurance companies generally have secret agreements to pay much lower prices. No informed person pays chargemaster prices.
That does not mean that chargemaster prices will not show up on your bill. If you are self-pay, and you do not know better, you might try to pay. Don’t. That only encourages them.
Another thing that seems to encourage them is sympathy.
You may have recently received a tax bill, including millage for the West Volusia Hospital Authority. The authority does not have a hospital, but it does pay indigent hospital bills.
Fortunately, the authority knows better than to pay chargemaster prices. Remember, some of that is my tax money. So they pay lower negotiated prices, where the hospitals only make a little bit of money instead of a great lot.
Here in West Volusia, the hospitals typically charge the taxpayers cost plus. That plus percentage is, essentially, profit. Since they call themselves not-for-profit, there are no shareholders to soak up the money. Instead, it goes to executive salaries.
The hospitals want you to feel that they are there to help the community. They collect only cost plus. The difference from the chargemaster price is announced as lost revenue.
Here is an easy hypo. If they only charge $2 for an aspirin, and chargemaster says $7, they are losing the difference of $5. Never mind that the pill can be had, retail, for less than 6 cents.
Hospitals will not report that the taxpayers fund a profit of $1.94 per pill. Instead, the taxpayers are saving $5 per pill. In other words, charity!
Some hospitals are particularly diligent in reporting this uncollected revenue to the authority. This should soften sympathetic taxpayers, who will happily fund next year’s budget increase. Not everyone will be fooled, but you have to figure that every little lie helps.
Aspirins are small in the overall scheme, but make easy targets. Charity, in the form of discounts off chargemaster prices, infuses everything the hospitals do for the public. And while you may think they are generous, I know what the executives are thinking — cost plus a profit equals a nice year-end bonus!
— Andrews is a DeLand-area attorney and a longtime government critic. For purposes of the column, he finds it convenient that there is so much government to criticize.
How about we end the west Volusia hospital authority that is stealing homeowners money to give it to illegal or “undocumented” persons. Because they are the only ones that can’t get Medicaid or some other government handout. Why don’t you also post howuch money the West Volusia Hospital Authority gets over year and how many cards they hand out to show the real cost analysis? It is unfortunate that you make this about the hospital and not about the horrific system created by the government that fuels this behavior. The only ones who pay are the people that get their money stolen from them at the threat of losing their homes. How about talking about that???