Note: UCSF Researcher Renee Y. Hsia, MD, is a CTSI KL2 Scholar.
By Elizabeth Fernandez at UCSF.edu
It’s a basic, reasonable question: How much will this cost me? For patients in the emergency room, the answer all too often is a mystery.
Emergency departments play a critical role in health care, yet consumers typically know little about how medical charges are determined and often underestimate their financial responsibility – then are shocked when the hospital bill arrives.
In a new study published online on Feb. 27 in PLOS ONE, a team of researchers led by UC San Francisco identified giant price swings in patient charges for the 10 most common outpatient conditions in emergency rooms across the country.
Out-of-pocket patient charges ranged from $4 to $24,110 for sprains and strains; from $15 to $17,797 for headache treatment; from $128 to $39,408 for kidney stone treatment; from $29 to $29,551 for intestinal infections; and from $50 to $73,002 for urinary tract infections.
While the study was not designed to evaluate specific reasons behind the cost variations, the authors noted previous research attributing cost differences to factors such as geographic location and provider reimbursement variations.
Read more at UCSF.edu