How Much Does It Cost?

The “it” is any type of usual and customary healthcare costs. Why should this be so difficult? I am not specifically talking about large catastrophic costs. A heart surgery is going to be expensive no matter what. Cancer treatment is also going to be expensive at any hospital. Also, these are conditions or ailments that need to be treated to a large extent regardless of the cost.

Yet, outside of catastrophic medical care, our basic healthcare services; primary care visits, specialist visits, diagnostic services, MRI’s, x-rays, blood tests, physicals, stress tests, EKG’s, etc. are a big mystery to really, most of us. We simply are not able to get from providers what these services cost as easily as we would any most other services in our economy.

Why? Why aren’t these services advertised and promoted freely so we can all know what they cost. As consumers we understand quality and cost. We just simply want to know ahead of time how much is it and for what?

Don’t attempt to sneak cost line items and services we did not receive into our bills.

We are American consumers that do not want things for free, but we want to make good decisions when it comes to our healthcare services. Some of us may want to go to a doctor who charges lower prices for their services than another doctor who also has more expensive magazines in their waiting area.

One doctor may bill you for 30 minutes worth of a visit even though they actually consulted with you for only ten minutes. Why?

All we want is clarity.

The result to all this confusion is part of the reason of why we tend to be so fixated on our health insurance plans covering for these services (co-pays, doctor visits, specialists, deductibles, etc., since we simply don’t understand these costs.

As Americans, we want our highly trained and specialized doctors to earn a good living. These individuals are highly respects and rightfully so for their hard work and intelligence. Yet, all we want to know is how much it costs?