“I do not deny that our charges look insane”

“I do not deny that our charges look insane,” said Allan Pont, California Pacific Medical Center’s chief medical officer in a fascinating Wall Street Journal piece. By insane he means, for example, charging $6675 per night for use of an oxygen mask that can be rented from a medical supply store for $250 per month, or charging $791 for stockings that can be bought online for $12. It’s a pricing fantasyland worthy of a military contractor.

When all those charges were added up, the upshot was this: a patient who seemed to have good insurance quickly maxed out his $1.5 million total health policy, and was stuck with $1.2 million in additional charges. The hospital aggressively pursued the patient for his bill, including allegedly visiting the patient to discuss the bill while he was still recovering in his hospital bed.

There’s a convoluted explanation for this, of course. Dr. Pont explained that the crazy charges were “the reality of the industry,” and everybody did it. They reflect, he said, things like the fact that only a third of the bills it sends out each year are paid.

So in other words, because this poor patient got sick, he was immediately stuck with the bills of other people who got sick too. He wouldn’t have been charged for their problems if he hadn’t gotten sick. It’s very logical, right?!

Strangely, the hospital is not that proud of upholding the status quo. If they were, they wouldn’t have wiped out the patient’s bill when a reporter called them and started asking questions.