Why Medical Bills Are So High

I have heard the consumer complaints again and again: “Why are my medical bills so high?” It’s a complicated issue that many people don't understand. They blame the hospital, the doctor, the insurance company, the government and anybody else who comes to mind because when the bill arrives, it's always painful. Nobody wants to be faced with a high hospital bill.

When recovering patients look at the details of a bill, they don't understand why a band aid should $9 when you can buy an entire box of band aids in the store for less than $3. Hurting and irate, patients are quick to lay blame on those "greedy" doctors, but they don't realize that doctors are often caught up in the system as much as they are.

Doctors blame the companies that sell them malpractice insurance as well as irresponsible or greedy patients. Patients blame doctors, hospitals and medical staffers. All of them blame the politicians. There is plenty of blame to go around, but where it actually lies:

Poor or irresponsible people do not buy health insurance. The law requires hospitals to treat sick people whether or not they can pay for their care. So, the poor and the insurance game players fill the emergency rooms every day instead of visiting a doctor in his office.

The most expensive way to get treatment is through an ER, but patients who use them don’t care because for them, the services they receive are free. However, somebody has to pick up the slack. The cost of their “free” care shifts to patients who can afford to pay, either out of pocket or via their health insurance.

Insurance companies know this. To protect themselves, they raise the cost of insurance. The pool of insured people grows smaller as people drop out of the system because they can’t afford the higher cost of health insurance. This makes the cost of insurance increase even more for those who do buy it. It's an ongoing downward spiral.

Add to this those medical practitioners who are greedy, sloppy, apathetic and uncaring who cause a great deal of pain and suffering. Because of them, people file lawsuits. Doctors cannot afford the costs involved in lawsuits, so they buy insurance. The more lawsuits there are, the higher the insurance premiums for doctors. As the rates increase, the doctors charge more to cover the immense insurance costs.

Unfortunately, even when a doctor is good at what he does, he still has to protect himself. There are many people who see dollar signs in medical problems. This is because the payouts are huge, so some people abuse their right to sue. Even if a medical practitioner is innocent, there are still attorney fees and court costs. Therefore, the bad impact the good. This raises medical costs for everybody.

Hospitals also pay insurers large sums for protection against lawsuits. These costs are shifted to paying patients. The hospitals are in the same position as the doctors: the bad impact the good.

In addition to these reasons for increased costs, some of the blame goes directly to a lack of individual patient responsibility. Patients need to be proactive in their own care however:

• Many people abuse their health and then expect doctors to cure them. It isn’t that easy. The worse the health situation, the more difficult it is to fix it. Doctors are not magicians; they cannot totally cure every illness or disease.
• People don’t do the research required to assure themselves the safest and best care. If they go to a hospital that has a high infection rate, they should not complain if they get an infection!
• People don’t prepare themselves for surgery. Months before a hip replacement surgery, for example, patients are supposed to do exercises to build up their leg and arm muscles. Few people do this.
• Few research their conditions or take the time to understand them.

Doctors, nurses, hospitals and their workers all are responsible for increased costs due to the poor attitudes and sloppy work of some. Malpractice insurance exists for good reasons. Here are some documented and avoidable errors (which I have seen personally) for which people have filed suit:

• Receiving medication that was meant for someone else
• Suffering through IV placements done by people who insist they know how to do them, but do not.
• Nurses who do not respond in a timely manner to efficiently administer pain medications or remove urinals.
• Nurses who insert catheters in men without proper lubrication or pain saving dressings.
• Nurses who do not hydrate oxygen tubes to save patients from needless discomfort.
• Workers who inadvertently remove oxygen tubes from patients who need them to breathe.
• Doctors who read charts too quickly and mix up the numbers of various important test readings.
• Surgeons touch new incisions without first washing their hands or putting on protective gloves.
• Staffers who enter sick rooms while sneezing and coughing.
• Staffers who ignore a back surgery patient’s plea to fix a dysfunctional airbed.
• Nurses who refuse to contact doctors in the middle of the night because they don’t want to disturb them, even when the patient is having dangerous problems.
• Physical therapists who push patients too hard and cause further damage to them.
• Doctors who write scripts for the wrong medications (for example: Tami flu for Tamoxifen).
• Doctors who don’t read charts correctly and wind up removing incorrect body parts.
• Doctors who prescribe conflicting medications that become toxic in patients’ systems as a result.
• Staffers who do not keep hospital rooms as germ free as possible.

Many medical people would fluff off most of these behaviors off as “mistakes”. Sometimes they are. More often, they are not mistakes, but rather behaviors exhibited by healthcare workers who are either:

• Overworked
• Tired
• Apathetic
• Malicious
• Lazy
• Sloppy
• Rushed

The facts listed here can make a person feel hopeless. While there is no one action that will reduce costs and make medical care safer, there are things people are now doing and can do to improve them.

• Obamacare will soon require all people to carry insurance. Some feel this is unconstitutional, but few realize that widening the pool of the insured will reduce health care costs.
• Some areas of the country already are making low cost neighborhood clinics available to the uninsured and poor to keep them from using Emergency Rooms unnecessarily.
• Obamacare now requires hospitals whose patients have suffered due to their negligence to treat the problems they’ve created (such as infection) at no charge.
• Some politicians are trying to put caps on malpractice claims to help reduce insurance costs for doctors and hospitals.
• Hospitals are starting to give their employees in depth training about protecting patients’ health.
• Individuals should practice preventive care for themselves.
• Individuals should only file lawsuits when absolutely necessary.
• All medical people should police their own and get rid of the slackers.
• Obamacare now requires doctors to file prescriptions electronically to reduce medication errors.
• Obamacare requires the sharing of patient information electronically as a means of eliminating duplication and controlling paperwork and testing costs.

The secret for improving health care costs is for everybody to work together. This is an idealistic goal, but the more responsible people become, the lower our medical bills will be.

As I said in the beginning of this article, there are reasons why medical bills are so high. Clearly, the cost of health care has spiraled out of control due to a complicated set of circumstances. As with many other issues, the answer lies within each of us. We must all take personal responsibility. Once we do, our medical bills will become lower, and the health care system in this country will find its equilibrium once again.