By Bill Zeeble, KERA 90.1 reporter
Dallas, TX – Bill Zeeble, KERA 90.1 reporter: For nearly a decade, the Texas Health Care Information Council has compiled hospital charges on a variety of surgical procedures. The goal is to enable Texas consumers and health plan purchasers to make informed health care decisions. The Texas Business Group on Health, an organization of large and small companies, puts these numbers, along with independent and respected outcome ratings, on its website. Marianne Fazen, president and CEO of the group, says there's a wide disparity of charges among different hospitals for the same procedure. She cites just one - charges for heart bypass surgery.
Marianne Fazen, President and CEO, Dallas/Fort Worth Business Group on Health: As the outcomes show, a hospital that charges $151,000 for bypass surgery has the same outcome as a hospital charging $30,000 for that procedure. Our statistics look at mortality, length of stay, and average charge.
Zeeble: Fazen's numbers are only slightly off. The most expensive hospital in the region for heart bypass surgery, RHD Memorial Medical Center in Dallas, actually charges $152,000, while Methodist Dallas Medical Center charges $34,000, or about a fifth of RHD's charge. The average fee for the procedure at the region's hospitals is about $75,000. Yet there's a serious concern about these numbers.
Michael Taggart, Institute for Health Care Measurement and Analysis: Nobody pays attention to those charges.
Zeeble: Michael Taggart, with the fledgling non-profit Institute for Health Care Measurement and Analysis, has worked in the industry for decades. He says published hospital charges are like a new car's sticker price which few people pay.
Taggart: That's not what's actually being paid to the hospital to take care of the cost of person's stay. What's being paid is a negotiated rate that depends on what the hospital and private health care company have agreed on, and that number is not showing up on any of these public reports.
Zeeble: Taggart and others say the actual reimbursement is considered proprietary and is not divulged, so businesses don't know what the actual hospital charges are. The state Chairman of the Texas Business Group on Health, Rodney Williams, says that number is important. Many large businesses are self insured, and they end up paying the final fee. So they need real numbers to make the best health care choices.
Rodney Williams, Chairman, Texas Business Group on Health: As the Business Group on Health, we're finding it tough to get to those numbers in terms of what net costs are, and I'm not sure what our next step is.
Zeeble: Marianne Fazen says publishing these hospital charges is valuable even though the Business Group on Health web page never explains that the charges are rarely, if ever, paid in full.
Fazen: The charges show how costly health care really is for procedures. To create an awareness, especially since consumers are taking on more responsibility for the payment, it's important they have an appreciation of how costly health care is.
Zeeble: And realize, she says, that high hospital charges don't necessarily mean better quality care. Both Fazen and Williams say they would like to put reimbursement figures on their web page, but believe consumer pressure may be the only way to force those numbers out of insurance companies. For KERA 90.1, I'm Bill Zeeble.
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