What a doctors’ visit really costs

There is a school of thought that one of the ways to help fix the health care problems in the US is for everyone to understand the true cost of providing care.  If you have insurance, what you pay does not resemble in any way the actual cost is.  There are many articles where you can read about all of the nuances of computing a charge, and that is not the purpose of this post.

I went to the doctor today after a couple of days of feeling like I had been run over by a truck, then backed over, then run over again.  Repeat.  I went to a local “doc in a box” or urgent care center, where they don’t take insurance anyway, but it helps to illustrate the point I think.  I got a flu test ( negative ), blood work ( positive for walking pneumonia ), two shots and some meds to take home with me.

The visit cost me $280 +/-.  One of the “joys” of being self-employed is that I don’t have nearly the number of options for health insurance as people who have group insurance do, so I basically have to pay for all of my healthcare unless I go to the hospital and spend lots of money.  Even with that, I realize that the fact that I have the choice to do that is, in itself, a luxury.   However, if I had made my visit today to a regular doctor with regular insurance, I would have paid a $25 co-pay and that probably would have been the end of my “out of pocket” costs.  I would have had no idea what the visit really cost.

Furthermore, we have found consistently since going onto our HSA that doctors charge us less than they would normally simply as a courtesy for not having to file insurance.  And, today, when the doctor found out I would have to pay for all of my prescriptions (about $200 worth according to him), he gave me samples instead.  In his words, “This is why I talk to the drug reps, so I can help people out.”

I feel like I got $280 worth of care today, easily.  I went in there feeling like death, and a few hours after leaving I felt remarkably better.  It’s hard to put a price on that, but $280 seems OK.  I also waited a bit longer to go to the doctor than I normally would have, just to see if it would clear on its’ own.  Some of that is because I am stubborn, but a good bit of it was I did not want to spend the money if I did not have to.  When it became obvious that I was not going to get better on my own, I went.

I pay a good bit more attention to what I spend on healthcare now than I ever have.  As a result, I spend less.  I realize this is not new, but I think until you are put in a position where you have to pay attention to what things cost, you don’t.  And that’s a big, big problem.