This is obviously an outrageous example of overcharging in the Health Care industry. What about the inflated prescription costs and the $50 aspirin you get in the hospital? There is nothing new here, people do not care unless they have to pay out of their own pocket a portion through there co pay. If you think this is bad wait until the government really takes over the entire health care system. We will be overcharged and under served on every aspect of medical service when national healthcare kicks in. The government cannot run the post office or any government agencies efficiently and they want to help us with healthcare services? What a joke ! They even screwed up the Cssh for Clunkers Program, a money giveaway that did not work and was financed with our money. The question is and should be, were are these astute government regulators when the entire system is fraudulent and corrupt. Why does an MRI or Catscan cost different amounts in different hospitals ? If the government really wanted to lower medical costs and expand coverage they would do their jobs and insure the medical industry and the drug makers charged a fair price for their services. Stop the lawyers from Suing doctors and hospitals into the stone age and regulate insurance costs that drive up healthcare costs if you really want to do something. Let Insurance companies, medical suppliers compete nationally to help bring down the costs.

As an RN in Mass, I am also outraged at the inflated prices for DME's and supplies. Another cost that insurers should look at is transportation by ambulance. A trip from Woburn to Burlington can cost over $4,000.00. They charge it, and Medicare pays it!

I don't buy Surgi-Care's argument... this is thievery and why our healthcare system is the costliest in the world. THERE OUGHT TO BE A LAW!

In my experience with Surgi-Care they have outstanding quality products, supported by a very competent team, available day or night to deliver and fit and if necessary instruct patients in the use of their equipment at remote community hospitals or University settings, same products, same service. They also have provided, without remuneration or complaint, durable equipment to the medically indigent patient at my request. Believe it or not an inappropriately sized or worn sling or immobilizer can compromise a surgical result. Is a sling, by itself, worth $83? Of course not!, but I don't think Surgi-Care deserves scorn, it's a well run company. Financing of healthcare (remember, 50% Connector enrollees pay no premium) has a lot of "cost shifting" which I believe to be at work here. Mr Dichter will be paying much more than $25 for future purchases with ObamaCare's DME tax. As for ambulances, the legislature passed a bill recently allowing the services to bill you directly, but your doctor has to accept set fee insurances such as Blue Cross and Medicare. Complain about the $4k to your State Rep, it was his idea.

When the Republicans said health-care would be Obama's Waterloo they knew what they were talking about. You need look no further than the paragraph about the lobbyists fighting hard against competition. Congress will ALWAYS side with their lobbyists over the American people, and the simple fact is that the wealthy will NEVER have to worry about health-care! Google health-care bankruptcies to see how many middle-class and upper middle class folks - who have health insurance - end up filing for bankruptcy. Obama is getting killed for trying to address something that Republicans will never fix and will only make worse because they like the status-quo!

Follow-up question. If James did not know who put the sling on, is it possible that a medical resource (Doctor or Nurse) gets paid by Surgi-Care to perform these tasks. This could be a reason for the higher price, but could also bring up conflict issues!

Another example of why we need national health care....

Nice try, Surgi-Care.

LarryNashua asked my question: someone put the sling on. Dichter woke up with it on. It is possible that someone from SurgiCare came to the hospital to fit it and put it on; it is possible that someone paid by them provided the service; it is possible that they only provided the sling and someone else did the fitting and placement. I assume that it is noted in his medical record, which he can obtain. If SurgiCare sent someone to do the fitting then $85 does not seem so unreasonable (lay, $75 for the visit and $10 for the sling).

(1) Surgi-care should have records indicating its technicians were on site to fit Mr. Dichter's sling. No mention of that sensible verification was made because Surgi-Care was never there. (2) Health care in the greater Boston area is unlike most other parts of the country. High numbers of healthcare facitities that are Harvard-affiliated teaching hospitals in our area have something to do with high costs incurred. (I'm not criticizing or laying blame; it's just that federal and private grants that go strictly towards clinical research seem to impact the cost of care provided on the other side of the hospitals.) (3) I doubt we will ever "commoditize" health care so that costs are blind to metro markets, hospital reputations, and capital investments they make towards updated equipment and processes. That is because there are too many for-profit companies serving, supplying, consulting, and designing for the health care institutions. How could they ever justify to their shareholders that they took the first step towards health care cost equalization? Health care will never be like the airline industry: there will never be favorable price wars there for the patients.

Boston Globe, go to it! Uncover more of these crazy medical costs.

I've gone to the hospital for a dislocation and they sorta forced me to take xrays which i knew i did not need. Then they gave me a very low quality sling and charged me 700 bucks.

We have had very similar experiences with other durable medical equipment providers as well. Dichter's experience is very common, we think, except that other medical devices are much, much more expensive and their markups correspondingly more. Usually patients are shielded from the nominal costs of medical equipment (the insurance companies do not pay these nominal costs-- the rate that they do pay (or "allow") is more in line with the market rates, i.e. what one sees on the internet if you go to buy a device from your own pocket). What precipitates these price shocks are the $1000 deductibles that Tufts and other insurers have imposed in the last two years (in effect, a $1000/year pay cut) -- when one has a deductible, the insurance company expects the patient to pay not the amount for the device that they would pay (which is reasonable and in line with the market rate), but the inflated, gouging price that the equipment company charges (up to the amount of the deductible). What is galling is that patients do not have a choice as to which device supplier company to patronize -- Tufts chooses which companies it will reimburse to. So essentially Tufts is coercing people to deal with these companies and these inflated rates until their deductibles are paid. This is what causes sticker shock in people like Dichter (and me), when we receive a bill in the mail for $100 or $200 1-2 months afterwards that we never got in the past, and which explains neither the extortionary prices nor the fact that we are paying these outrageous prices because of those infernal deductibles. It certainly looks and smells like a scam of some sort. The Globe and Martha Coakley's office should do some investigation of why medical suppliers do this and why the insurance companies aid and abet it. It may be that the medical device suppliers are scamming Medicare/Medicaid and that their nominal prices are set on that basis. Maybe the insurers are getting kickbacks of some sort from the device suppliers. Our medical system desperately needs price transparency. There needs to be a patient bill of rights that tells each patient explicitly AHEAD OF TIME how much each procedure/med/device will cost them. Prices need to be uniform and public. This would go a long, long way towards price controls in the medical sector. On a national level, with all the hue and cry over Medicare finances, if we could get rid of such scams there would be no need for cuts or eligibility restrictions. The (evil, cynical) Republicans have characteristically vehemently opposed the ability of Medicare to negotiate prices for meds or devices, and then they use Medicare waste as a pretext for gutting the program. The waste is every bit as bad in the private sector.

We were once billed $700 for a set of xrays that were not actually taken in a New York hospital (i.e. BILLING FRAUD). Scrutinize your bill, and make sure that the procedure billed matches what was actually done. You need to demand to know how much the x-rays will cost you before you consent to having them done. If it's an out of pocket expense, make damned sure that they are necessary, because doctors order these things out of habit (brings money into the hospital, is covered by a third party, gives them a defense against lawsuits, and may also be helpful in terms of diagnosis). If patients are made responsible for their medical costs, either by insurers or by society, then they should have the right to know IN ADVANCE exactly what those costs will be. Hospital doctors are woefully (and perhaps half-willingly) ignorant of what their procedures actually cost patients. Nobody is in control, and costs spiral out of control.

The Republicans were the ones who explicitly prohibited the Federal government from negotiating drug prices for Medicare drug coverage. This is a large part of the reason that drug prices in the US are higher than in other comparable countries (such as Canada, where the government is allowed to negotiate drug prices). We should be allowed to freely import meds from other countries. Isn't that what globalism and free trade (and Walmart) are all about? The larger problem is that the pharmaceutical and health insurance industries have captured the US Federal government, such that no real reform is possible. This last round, they were bought off by the prospect of increasing the number of insured people (employer-sponsored health insurance is steadily declining). Although it is only incremental, Obama's health care reform is a step in the right direction: 1) eliminate pre-existing condition barriers, 2) prohibit insurers from dropping clients who get sick, 3) cover children up to 26 on family plans, 4) close the Medicare donut hole, 5) provide access to affordable health care plans for individuals who do not have employer sponsored insurance. What we need now is 1) price transparency and 2) cost controls.

I had a similar experience with a local orthopedic office. I was given a foot brace to help with a stress fracture. They charged my insurance $125 for it. Because I hadn't met my deductible yet, I was charged the full amount. I did a quick Google search and the same sling sold many other places for $25 - $40. The mark up was crazy. I sent a letter to the office indicating the issue and they did a courtesy adjustment for $40.

How about $900 for a 20 minute office visit to get some nasal spray? My co-pay portion was only $15, thanks to a good medical plan. But $900, really?

Always, always, always read your medical bills! I got charged $100 for a flu shot from my doctor in his office. You can bet the next year I went to the local pharmacy who gave me a shot for $29. It's not insurance by itself, it's the cost of healthcare that's killing us.

The charge was $2,300 for a 10-minute ambulance ride to the emergency room. Blue Cross approved $542 including a $50 co-pay, which satisfied the ambulance company, but without insurance the poor patient would have been stuck with the full amount.

Then they should charge for the sling and the consult separately.