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Healthcare profiteering - rip off in plain sight.

Jonsa

Jonsa

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I came across this article and was stunned that this kind of business and immoral profiteering is perfectly acceptable form of healthcare provision in America.

how-rich-investors-not-doctors-profit-from-marking-up-er-bills

TeamHealth, a medical staffing firm owned by private-equity giant Blackstone, charges multiples more than the cost of ER care. All the money left over after covering costs goes to the company, not the doctors who treated the patients.

<snip>

TeamHealth, a medical staffing firm owned by private-equity giant Blackstone, charges multiples more than the cost of ER care. All the money left over after covering costs goes to the company, not the doctors who treated the patients.

20200612-teamhealth-pie-B.jpg

<snip>
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jaeger19 said:
Based on your graph.. you are upset because they make a 10% profit? Please explain.
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you should have read the article. That 1.6 billion is the amount that Teamhealth billed. Calculate that profit.
 
Jonsa said:
I came across this article and was stunned that this kind of business and immoral profiteering is perfectly acceptable form of healthcare provision in America.

how-rich-investors-not-doctors-profit-from-marking-up-er-bills
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Our ER doctors bill separately from the hospital. The imaging people do as well, so if they do any, you will get three separate bills for an ER visit. Same if you have surgery. Have an ekg and you will get a separate bill from whomever is "reading the results", etc etc etc.
 
Jonsa said:
I don't know where the line is but 700%+ is a tad much, don't you think?
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Not if you can't make a case for where the line is for "immoral" profiteering. I understand your displeasure with large polrofits but therefore 2 problems here. First yiu made a claim of "immoral" profiteering without any standard. That's intellectually disingenuous. Second I suspect you associate what you consider to be high profits with high healthcare costs. Is that correct?

BTW your own article says 19% went to corporate profits and over a billion and a half dollars wasnt collected
 
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Jonsa said:
I came across this article and was stunned that this kind of business and immoral profiteering is perfectly acceptable form of healthcare provision in America.
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It seems to be a wider systematic problem, though the companies are undoubtedly taking advantage of it. The fundamental issue seems to be that the doctors aren't employed by the hospital, even indirectly through the staffing company, so the billing for the doctor is separate to the billing for the hospital care. Presumably that will usually only be a complication for the insurance companies (though probably adds to their costs and thus prices) but where the doctor is out of network, their time has to be billed to the patient separately. That opens scope for expense, error and abuse.

To my mind, the obvious solution would be for the hospital to employ the doctors (via an agency if they prefer) and pay them directly for their work. Then there would only ever be one set of billing for the entire period of care. I assume this doesn't happen because it's also cheaper and easier for the hospital, who absolve themselves of responsibility for most of the costs and complications surrounding employing people (especially medical professionals) so it might need to be enforced by law or regulation for it to happen.

Of course, it could be argued that this is just another of the long list of problems caused by the for-profit private healthcare system in the US and the entire thing needs reforming from the ground up. It's a pity that is too much of a political minefield for anyone with any kind of real power to even consider.
 
Ignatius said:
Not if you can't make a case for where the line is for "immoral" profiteering. I understand your displeasure with large polrofits but therefore 2 problems here. First yiu made a claim of "immoral" profiteering without any standard. That's intellectually disingenuous. Second I suspect you associate what you consider to be high profits with high healthcare costs. Is that correct?

BTW your own article says 19% went to corporate profits and over a billion and a half dollars wasnt collected
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wasn't collected means written off, which reduces income which avoids taxes. Brilliant plunder.
 
Jonsa said:
wasn't collected means written off, which reduces income which avoids taxes. Brilliant plunder.
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Oops had a typo only 10% went to profits, where did you get 700%?

Also you failed to address how you can judge anything as immoral if you can't even decide for yourself where the limits are.
 
HonestJoe said:
It seems to be a wider systematic problem, though the companies are undoubtedly taking advantage of it. The fundamental issue seems to be that the doctors aren't employed by the hospital, even indirectly through the staffing company, so the billing for the doctor is separate to the billing for the hospital care. Presumably that will usually only be a complication for the insurance companies (though probably adds to their costs and thus prices) but where the doctor is out of network, their time has to be billed to the patient separately. That opens scope for expense, error and abuse.

To my mind, the obvious solution would be for the hospital to employ the doctors (via an agency if they prefer) and pay them directly for their work. Then there would only ever be one set of billing for the entire period of care. I assume this doesn't happen because it's also cheaper and easier for the hospital, who absolve themselves of responsibility for most of the costs and complications surrounding employing people (especially medical professionals) so it might need to be enforced by law or regulation for it to happen.

Of course, it could be argued that this is just another of the long list of problems caused by the for-profit private healthcare system in the US and the entire thing needs reforming from the ground up. It's a pity that is too much of a political minefield for anyone with any kind of real power to even consider.
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Can you show why "profit"is a problem?
 
Ignatius said:
Can you show why "profit"is a problem?
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Exploitation of people in need. Think of it as an abusive partner that withholds something you need in order to live so they can control your life.
 
bomberfox said:
Exploitation of people in need. Think of it as an abusive partner that withholds something you need in order to live so they can control your life.
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So the answer is no you can't show why "profit" is a problem.
 
Ignatius said:
So the answer is no you can't show why "profit" is a problem.
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I just did... it can be a big problem precisely because of exploitation.
 
Ignatius said:
If a doctor or hospital makes a profit that's exploitation? You need to explain exactly how.
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When you are hoarding life saving medicine to jack up the price, that is exploiting the people who will die as a reault.
 
bomberfox said:
When you are hoarding life saving medicine to jack up the price, that is exploiting the people who will die as a reault.
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How does keeping a drug from people who need it to live help you gain a profit?
 
Ignatius said:
How does keeping a drug from people who need it to live help you gain a profit?
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Jacks up the price of things that have a very inelastic demand curve. People need the stuff so you can use your economic power to profit off their need because the demand does not change much with the increased price. Lots of medicines have very inelastic demand.
 
bomberfox said:
Jacks up the price of things that have a very inelastic demand curve. People need the stuff so you can use your economic power to profit off their need because the demand does not change much with the increased price. Lots of medicines have very inelastic demand.
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So no one should make profit?
 
Ignatius said:
So no one should make profit?
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Ehhh im not quite there but people should keep in mind that abusing their economic power to exploit people will lead to the unnecessary deaths of many people. Its a form of violence to extort people.
 
Ignatius said:
Oops had a typo only 10% went to profits, where did you get 700%?

Also you failed to address how you can judge anything as immoral if you can't even decide for yourself where the limits are.
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The "uncollected" is where the gold for the "shareholders" is. Lovely inflated losses. as to where the limit is, I don't know, but I do know that 700% markups as pricing benchmarks is friggin' outrageous any way you want to slice it. Particularly when you have the payee by the balls like every ER dept has.
 
bomberfox said:
Ehhh im not quite there but people should keep in mind that abusing their economic power to exploit people will lead to the unnecessary deaths of many people. Its a form of violence to extort people.
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Good to hear you're not there yet but we are back to the beginning in that people can't seem to define where reasonable profit ends and excessive profits begins. How would the necessary life saving drugs be created if not by people willing to put up their capital at risk to develop it and profit from it?
 
Jonsa said:
The "uncollected" is where the gold for the "shareholders" is. Lovely inflated losses. as to where the limit is, I don't know, but I do know that 700% markups as pricing benchmarks is friggin' outrageous any way you want to slice it. Particularly when you have the payee by the balls like every ER dept has.
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Why do you think ERs charge so much?

I will ask you this AGAIN if you don't know where the limit is on profit how do you have the balls to complain about any profit being "excessive"?
 
Ignatius said:
Good to hear you're not there yet but we are back to the beginning in that people can't seem to define where reasonable profit ends and excessive profits begins. How would the necessary life saving drugs be created if not by people willing to put up their capital at risk to develop it and profit from it?
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Normally drugs are created through public/private partnerships with pharmaceutical companies and research teams at universities. There may not be an exactly defined amount but that is ok, sometimes we need to work with that. I would personally prefer medicine be a public service much like the fire department, not so much driven by profit. Public funding can go into medical research where discoveries can be made in a cooperative approach. Currently patents in medicine do not work so well in encouraging innovation and the privilege in medicine does not benefit consumers.
 
Ignatius said:
Why do you think ERs charge so much?

I will ask you this AGAIN if you don't know where the limit is on profit how do you have the balls to complain about any profit being "excessive"?
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700%markups have very little excuse for doing so, like i said the sort of economic power needed for such a markup is incredibly unjust.
 
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