Stephanie Noonan Drachkovitch recently broke her foot while riding a horse. She was treated at the UCLA Orthopedic Institute in Thousand Oaks and has no complaints about the quality of care.
"My doctor is great," Drachkovic told me. "It has nothing to do with them."
As you might have guessed, this is about her subsequent medical bills-this is another example of how our health care system often deceives people with exaggerated and absurd expenses.
In Drachkovitch's case, what caught her attention was the $809 fee charged on the bill for the plastic walking boots that she put on her feet after being injured.
"I thought,'Wow, really?!'" the residents of Valley Village told me. "So much money!"
Drakkovic is not a novice financially. She is the co-founder and co-CEO of Burbank 44 Blue Productions, a producer of unscripted and documentary TV shows.
"As a CEO, I understand profit margins, and I understand profitability," Drachkovic said, adding that the "up to 30%" increase in the treatment she received would not be untimely.
Out of curiosity, she searched for her boots AirCast AirSelect. She found it on Amazon for about $80.
Wait, 80 dollars? UCLA charged her more than $800 in bills? A markup close to 1,000%?
"I think the price on the bill must be a typo," Drachkovitch said. "It must be so."
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Drachkovitch said that a service representative at UCLA checked her bill, and you guessed it, there are no typos. Thousand Oaks Clinic is serious. In fact, you can charge $809 for something you can buy online, and the price is only a small part of it.
This is too typical for the 4 trillion U.S. healthcare system, which charges the highest treatment fees in the world and forces Americans to pay roughly twice that of other developed countries.
Not coincidentally, a 2019 study found that medical expenses are the main factor in approximately two-thirds of U.S. individual bankruptcy filings. Every year, more than 500,000 American families go bankrupt because they cannot afford medical expenses.
This is largely due to the fact that doctors and hospitals often charge ridiculous amounts from insurance companies to increase reimbursement rates.
The list price of healthcare, called "chargemaster", is usually independent of actual cost. A 2016 study found that most hospital charge supervisors charge four times the actual cost of providing treatment.
The study found that certain health care services (such as CT scans) may charge nearly 30 times higher than the actual cost.
However, even with the absurd billing standards of the American healthcare system, the nearly 1,000% markup experienced by Drachkovitch is extraordinary—a sign of amazing corporate greed.
She decided to share her concerns with the senior management of UCLA Health.
"This is not only another example of overcharging consumers by hospitals, but it also raises moral and ethical issues for those who cannot afford medical expenses," Drachkovic told them. "How many Los Angeles people can afford AirCast for $809?"
This led Anton Loman, director of the UCLA Physician's Billing Office, to reply via email.
He said that Drachkovic’s bill was wrong. Loman said that her insurance company Anthem Blue Cross "made a mistake in claims processing and allowed 100% of the cost."
He said that Drachkovitch should be charged $639 instead of $809.
Oh, well, this makes everything normal. This is only a 700% markup.
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Loman also pointed out that Medicare allows a charge of $346 for AirCast boots, which is still about five times the cost of Amazon.
He told Drachkovitch that "unfortunately" rising insurance deductibles and co-insurance payments have led to an "exponential increase" in patient out-of-pocket expenses-a failure to attribute the high prices charged by him and other hospitals to insurance companies. The right way.
Drachkovitch shared her bill with me. In addition to initially paying $809 for the $80 boots, she also paid nearly $300 for X-rays, $68 for aluminum crutches, and $864 for foot treatment.
The total bill is $3,115. With insurance, Drachkovitch shared the cost of $720, which was then reduced to $550 due to billing errors.
"This is the bill that people get, and it breaks my heart," she told me. "How many people, especially those without insurance, can pay this fee?"
UCLA and other medical institutions usually provide discounts and financial assistance to patients with financial constraints, but this will only make the problem permanent.
It allows those crazy inflated Chargemaster prices to continue to define the basic cost of health care in the country, rather than the amount charged by doctors and hospitals reflecting actual medical costs (with reasonable markups).
UCLA health spokesperson Phil Hampton told me: “The negotiated rate not only takes into account the cost of the product, but also considers the clinical staff in the installation of items, the correct use to provide consultation to patients and Time and expertise in other direct and indirect costs."
"We know that health insurance, bills and expenses can be complicated, and we encourage patients with problems to contact our agents for clarification, and assist insurance companies to solve problems when needed, and provide potential financial assistance," he said.
"Who can defend the 800-dollar boots?" Drachkovic responded. "Instead of providing financial aid, UCLA should be the first to charge a fair price."
That's great, but no medical institution can reform the healthcare system alone.
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What is needed is a systemic reform-a complete transformation of the country's medical services, so that providers can make substantial profits without leaving many patients in poverty.
"Medicare for all" may not solve all problems. But this will at least put us in the same position as our foreign economic counterparts (please forgive the pun), who provide the same or better care at about half the cost per capita.
"It's so stupid that we say we can't solve this problem," Drachkovitch said. "We can solve this problem."
All we need is the courage to try.
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David Lazarus is an award-winning business columnist for the Los Angeles Times. He also appears on KTLA Channel 5 every day. His work was published in newspapers across the country and led to the enactment of various consumer protection laws.
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