In the beginning of October, I had a severe attack of sciatica

[Fortinbras Armstrong]

For which I went to the local hospital emergency room. I just got a statement from my health insurance company which detailed some of the charges. The one that really got to me was the charge for the one (1) prednisone tablet they gave me: $1004.58.

I looked it up, and the retail price for such a tablet is $1.20.

[dutch777]

1. If you have a spare prednisone tablet at home, mail it to the billing department.

Tell them you are even. I worked for a hospital and had to keep my mouth shut because when I heard stuff like this it made me crazy. I realized that they are just trying to cover their overhead anyway they can but this kind of non-sense leaves a bad taste in people's mouths.

[JohnSJ]

2. Prednisone tablets are very cheap, and actually much less than 1.20 per tablet. That has to be an

error somewhere. I would definitely ask them about that charge

[jmbar2]

3. Contest it

Show them the cost data you found and refuse to be gouged. Threaten to go to the media.

[sop]

4. The medical billing review companies I used always found stuff like this.

[Hoyt]

5. Your insurance company will pay them a dime or so, and the hospital will write-off the rest.

For example, Texas BCBS pays $0.01 for that pill. Medicare is closer to 2 cents.

Why hospitals and physicians play this stupid game is beyond me.

[babylonsister]

6. I imagine there's some way they write it off via taxes. nt

[Hoyt]

7. Honestly, they don't get any tax break for that. To be able to deduct the difference, they would

have to account for the $1,004.58 as income. They don't do that. Plus, even if they did, it wouldn't make any difference in financial outcome.

Anyway, most hospitals nowadays are non-profit, at least on paper.

For publicity, they might be able to say they provide millions of uncompensated care, but that's just PR BS. And it's always possible some uninsured billionaire will pay the $1,004.58. A poor uninsured person might get hassled, but they aren't going to get $1,004 and the providers know that.

It goes back to early years of Medicare where providers got paid in a subsequent year based upon what the charged in previous years. Medicare and insurers changed that decades ago. A few insurance companies still pay a percentage of charges, but not many anymore.

[SWBTATTReg]

8. Wow...just wow...