A community of 30,000 US Transcriptionist serving Medical Transcription Industry

Why Healthcare Costs So Much in America -

Posted: Apr 23, 2017

Not for those who are too impatient to read anything longer than a paragraph.

While our earnings are being ground into dust, the HC providers we ultimately work for are marking up everything they deliver by 300%, 400% and more, making outsize profits and paying obscene salaries to executives.

Example: A patient charged $1.50 for a generic Tylenol pill when you can buy a bottle of 200 for $4.00 from Walmart (2 cents a pill). https://www.walmart.com/ip/39661523

...that's 2 cents retail. You can only imagine what a large HC organization pays in bulk.

Well researched, you'll be able to engage anyone in a discussion about HC costs when you're done. (I imagine a similar analysis of higher education would have comparable findings.)

;

EVERY MTSO SHOULD READ THIS - then maybe they wouldn't be - so quick to contract for pittances.

[ In Reply To ..]

It's also the reason we ourselves should have staged a job action LONG LONG AGO. There's plenty of money in the system TO PAY US PROPERLY FOR OUR SERVICES, but our weak MTSO owners - most of whom are rotten business people - let themselves get steamrolled into accepting crappy contracts...and you know that crap rolls downhill, to us.

It's not the MTSO's fault about transcription - wages.

[ In Reply To ..]
It's the transcriptionists fault for accepting the wages they pay. The problem started long ago when they didn't unionize.

Both are at fault, but which one is in the power position? - The client, MTSO or MT?

[ In Reply To ..]
The answer is obvious. In order of power, it's the MTSO, then the client and at the bottom of the power structure is the MT.

Why the MTSO and not the client? Because the MTSO surrenders power to the client by virtue of being a bad-faith negotiator (or an incompetent negotiator). This, in turn, is fostered by a lack of business acumen. For instance, ask 100 MTSOs what their marginal cost of producing a line is (which affects your bid), and 99 of them not only can't tell you, they don't even know what a "marginal cost" is.

By the "relative power" rubric (which is used in court, for instance, to assign responsibility among multiple defendants), the MTSO bears the brunt of the fault - first, for ceding negotiating power to the client, and then for callously passing along the crappy outcome to the MT.

The MT line rate has been the primary variable component of labor cost to the MTSO. As the weak MTSOs have accepted lower and lower line rates in their contracts, they have had to find cost savings - and that means looking at variable costs. In other words, it means passing along lower rates to the MT.

I do agree with you that we should have put our foot down long ago. Unionization would have been one way to level the playing field when it comes to power.

This is not new information, though if you - did not know this, you should read

[ In Reply To ..]
If you read your medical bills when they come in you should already know this. People are quick to blame the insurance companies but the facilities are the ones coming up with ridiculous charges. My daughter went in to have stitches on her finger and when the bill came in, it had two surgeries! I will buy the stitches being considered a surgery, but the second one was wrapping it with gauze along with the price of the gauze and $80 for a finger splint, which were $4.00 at Walmart for 3 of them. These "surgeries" were over $300 apiece. The insurance company told me I would have to contact the ones who make the coding rules, which is the AMA to complain. The insurance companies just have to pay the bills.

My tip is if you need stitches, don't let them put gauze on it, go buy some at Walmart and do that yourself.

Hospitals have done this for years to people with - insurance to make up the slack for

[ In Reply To ..]
those who don't. Back in the 80s (I've worked in the health care field for years) I knew this so I refused all kinds of things when I had my daughter, from the little footies they "give" you (you are charged) on up. I even left a day early. Saved me hundreds.

That's their excuse, but it doesn't wash. 29% profit in any - service sector is huge.

[ In Reply To ..]
We've swallowed this guff for years - "Our charges to insured patients help to subsidize our uninsured patients."

It only takes a simple glance at the bottom line to see that hospitals are vastly OVER-subsidizing the care that they provide to uninsured patients.

Higher education makes similar claims, which beg the quesstion why the profit margins in both the healthcare and higher education sectors GROSSLY EXCEED those in other service industries.

The very "umbrella" of pious "gratis" services is precisely what allows this to happen.

You buy the bullsh1t, you live with the stink.

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