Community Corner

Data Shows Disparity of Costs for Common Medical Procedures

Routine medical procedures such as colonoscopies, MRIs, CT scans and mammograms can cost from hundreds to thousands of dollars in Wayne County.

Prices for common medical procedures at health care facilities in Wayne County vary widely, according to data from New Choice Health, a private company that encourages people to become smarter health care consumers.

A CT scan, for example, can cost as little as $1,630 or as much as $3,760, depending on where a patient has the procedure done. That's a difference of more than $2,000.

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The same is true for colonoscopies, mammograms and MRIs, according to the data for the county, which is highlighted in the chart above.

These cost disparities have been in the news lately. Last week, the Washington Post highlighted disparaties in medical procedures by different health care providers in the District of Columbia. 

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Using the same data as the Post, the Detroit Free Press listed prices for procedures in hospitals across Metro Detroit.

In the Free Press report, the University of Michigan Health System was frequently listed as the most expensive, while smaller hospitals such as Garden City Hospital and Botsford had the lowest prices. 

The Free Press and the Post used data from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. The federal data was released last week as part of the 2010 Affordable Care Act.

Patch worked with New Choice Health to examine the cost of four well-known procedures in Patch communities across the country and found wide disparities in the four routine procedures noted in chart. Data revealed costs can vary by thousands of dollars even within the same county.

The New Choice Health data reflect the “list prices” for these procedures – kind of like the sticker price on a new car. The data combines recent and historical federal data with price quotes provided by health care providers

But there are questions about whether such data is helpful to patients.

The prices charged by regional health providers vary even more when comparing costs across the U.S.

Ryan Sullivan, a policy analyst with the Michigan Consumers for Health advocacy group, told the Free Press that the disparity shows the extent consumers are at the mercy of health care providers. 

“When you see numbers like this that vary so wildly, you have to ask, ‘Why is there such a difference?’" he said.

Insured patients often pay less because insurance companies negotiate discounts and reimbursements with health care providers.

“It’s true that Medicare and a lot of private insurers never pay the full charge,” Renee Hsia told the Post. The assistant professor at the University of California at San Francisco Medical School researches price variations.

“But you have a lot of private insurance companies where the consumer pays a portion of the charge. For uninsured patients, they face the full bill. In that sense, the price matters,” she told the Post.

Brad Myers of New Choice said their goal is to give consumers the information they need to negotiate for themselves and make informed decisions when it comes to paying for their health care.

“It does give consumers more information than before,” Sullivan told the Free Press. “But as far as giving them the ability to arm-wrestle a hospital down to an affordable cost, I don’t think these numbers do that.”


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