for any particular supply, but maybe they ll go over your overall bill and reduce it. you never know until you try. there s nothing that gets your blood boiling than thinking about having to go back and forth with the insurance or the hospital. in your book the empowered patient, you talk about what it is like to try to battle your insurance company. what do you do to get somewhere as opposed to just get heartburn? you have to try to sort of take a deep breath and you re negotiating the hospital and also the insurance company. two different people. one thing that helps is if you get your insurance through your employer, ask your benefits department to help you out. i know i ve had to do this before, and they re very, very helpful. insurance companies are more likely to listen to your employer because they represent a lot of money. you represent just one person. so if you get it through your employer as most americans do, use that employer to help you. what are you going to do w
surprising, elizabeth. yes, it is a little surprising. you ll see it in the piece. hospitals certainly have a lot of explaining to do. why there is such an enormous mark-up on supplies they use every day. you recently had an experience when you were in the hospital that really blew your mind. well, when i got out of the hospital and got the bill. yeah. i definitely had an alarming experience. i received my bill and noticed some items that were totally inflated. forceps, 25-gauge, disposable. $863.20. what went through your mind? i was outraged. i said, listen, i m a physician. this is an instrument that you re going to throw away. and i encountered a very arrogant young man from the billing department who basically said, when you sign consent for the procedure, you allowed us to charge you anything we wanted
to. and so you then went on the internet to see what it would cost to get a pair of forceps from a medical supply company. yes, i did. come show me what you found. a forcep similar to the one i had, $192. you paid $863 but you can buy it from a medical supply company for $192. yes, that s very troubling. i m going to the american hospital association and ask them to please explain this mark-up to me. i thoroughly agree with that. the markup on these forceps was more than four times what it would cost to just get it from a medical supply company. why? four times. because people want that people want to know why. well, i think everybody understands the notion that when you buy something, let s say like a steak and you want to have a really nice steak dinner at home. it s a lot less expensive to
prepare it, and enjoy it at home than it is out in a restaurant. if they want to charge you $863 for disposable piece of equipment, they can do it. the hospital has to be able to bring in more money than it spends or it won t there be for the next patient. let s look at that analogy. you go to a restaurant, you wan a nice bottle of wine. typically the mark-up is 100%. they double the cost. even if they double the cost, they wouldn t even be anywhere near in the ballpark. patients obviously can t bring their own supplies to the operating room so what do they do? no, you can t bring your own supplies because hospitals say, look, we don t know if they re okay, if the quality control, infection control. because you can just buy them. i went online and bought the same forceps that she used in the surgery. so the only thing that you can do is to do what she did which is to call the hospital and argue with them and there is a chance that they will reduce your bill somewhat. maybe not
mortgage. thanks so much for coming in. i hope you ll be with us again thanks for having me. okay, folks. elvis may have left the building but you can still own items used to embalm and prepare his body for his 1977 funeral. yep. forceps, toe tag, rubber gloves, and a comb are among the items up for auction in chicago next month. they ll be sold in two lots. they could fetch as much as $8,000. come on. this is lindsay lohan s mug shot, orange jump suit and all snapped just after she arrived at the lynwood detention facility yesterday. she likely will serve just two weeks of her 90-day jail sent because of over crowding. late night comedians are having a field day with the spectacle. okay. so jimmy kimmel sent his celebrity avenger to court. watch this. when she opens the door we re going to be quiet so we can hear. lindsay, fight for your right to party! fight for your right to party! i ll wait for you! she has accepted