Want to come to Oregon??? LOL
That was a really interesting article in our local paper. I'll keep checking to see if it becomes free once it gets a little older and will send you a link if it does.
$175, what a deal!!
I shopped for and MRI 3 years ago and saved $400.
This summer its thyroid U/S time for me again. Boy am I going to call around.
Wow! My last U/S was around $175.
You have to shop, shop, shop every procedure, I know because I have very high deductible health insurance, so I pay for almost everything out-of-pocket.
My husband recently had a procedure. There were two providers of this service, coincidentally right across the street from each other. $2,000 at the first, $1,300 at the second.
We all have to stop thinking that when health insurance covers something, it's "free". Health care costs will never get back under control until we move them back into the free market economy, i.e. we shop.
I wanted to give you a link to an article that appeared in our local paper just a couple of days ago. However, it's not a free article. It told about a woman with RA whose treatments were $2,300 less in a clinic across the street from the more expensive one, which was twice as much. The article pointed out that the expensive clinic was consistently rated by patients as "average".
Both providers and insurance companies are more attuned to providing this information than they used to be. With more and more people spending out-of-pocket, we have achieved some semblance of transparency. One person's charge at a provider may vary considerably from another's due to rates that your insurance company negiotiates with each provider. However, if you call your insurance company, they will provide you with a basic "bottom line" for each provider. I've found the estimates to be within a few dollars of what I actually ended up paying.
If you don't think there's anything you can do to help control health care costs, you're dead WRONG. Become a consumer again. Would you pay $2,000 for a TV if you could get it across the street for $1,300? Why do you make a big purchase in health care without shopping, then???
Massachusetts did a study of provider charges and found that charges did not correlate with quality of care or the number of Medicare/Medicaid recipients that the provider treated or any of the other usual excuses a provider will give you for being more expensive.
Yes, think about this when you have your next U/S. Think about this when you have ANY procedure, but especially those that, like thyroid U/S, will be repeated many times.