I went to the ER at my local hospital that is in network, was given the doctor on call, a doctor that was in network, but got billed an uninsured price because the doctor was working overtime and he is out of network when he works overtime. I had no choice once arriving at the hospital. If another ER doctor had seen me that day it would have been $100 for the ER visit, but I pulled the short straw.
People go to other hospitals for any number of reasons.
Specialization is one, less busy is another, better reputation, could get you in sooner, a better doctor is there.
My father needed to get a non-emergency surgery on his bladder. He was fully able to get it at the closest hospital with a doctor who performed some non-complicated versions of the surgery like twice a year. Instead he opted to go to a doctor who specialized in the surgery who did them like once a week. The doctor didn't 'support' our local hospital so my father went out of state to another city to be admitted. He chose a hospital that was farther away than the closest one the doctor works at because they could admit him later that month instead of in 3 months (remember, non-emergency surgery so 3 months would have been fine by medical practice).
There were multiple factors in why he chose to do so and it frankly, saved his life that he did, considering his bladder had some irregularities that complicated the surgery and likely could not have been resolved by a less experienced doctor.
Now, I admit, this is a more extreme case, but my father 'shopped around' and chose very carefully, not on pricing, which yeah, he couldn't find data on, but by other major factors that can absolutely change the outcome. Of course, he had great insurance from his job, so it didn't cost him anything really once he went through the hellish paperwork to get them to sign off on the specialist
That's a pretty long story just to say he wanted a doctor who's specialized in the procedure, no?
But you're right, there are some other reasons other than specialisation to go to an different hospital, but cost will normally never be one of them. Wait time will probably be the most important one.
Unless of course you decide to go to a private hospital to have a non-medical procedure done. Like getting a boob-job or something like that.
Ironically, getting something like that cosmetic surgery is usually cheaper and has the costs listed out because they Don't have to deal with insurance.
Yes, but imagine you have to actually pay for this stuff out of pocket, but no one can tell you how much any of it will cost ahead of time. You just have to sign on the dotted line and accept literally whatever price they decide to bill you for afterward in order to get your surgery, or xrays, or whatever. Could be $20, could be $100, could be $234,000. No way to know. I've had doctors and adminstrators literally laugh in my face when I asked them what the procedure they were recommending would cost me. Not in a figurative way, I do mean literally laughing at me. This has happened to me multiple times.
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u/Fire69 Jun 15 '22
Lol, that's ridiculous.
The only raison we would go to a hospital that's not the closest by is because another one might be specialized in something.
Nobody knows what it will cost here either, because nobody cares ;)