No Payment Due...That's Nice.

The bill for my hospital stay came in the mail sometime last week. I've been through this enough times that I'm no longer surprised at how much medical procedures cost, but I do still find it interesting at how much my insurance is charged for various aspects of my care. Case in point, here is page two of the bill for my pressure sore surgery:

(click to enlarge)

I kind of got a kick out of the fact that there are two different rates for the time spent in surgery. The first 30 minutes are apparently billed at a set amount of $1396, and then each subsequent minute is billed in addition to that. I now know that I was in the operating room for a total of 98 minutes. The additional 68 minutes clocked in at $2108, which by my calculations breaks down to $31 per minute. That initial half-hour, on a per minute basis, comes in at $45 and some change. Damn, I didn't know I was getting a discount.

Well hey, as long as this thing is on sale is there anything else you guys can patch up? I took a broomball stick across the bridge of my nose my freshman year and my nose just hasn't been the same since. It's not that noticeable, I know, but there's a bump there on the right side...No, no my right...that wasn't there before. Can you clean that up? I mean, this is plastic surgery. Right?

The moral of the story is, if you only have half an hour on your schedule to squeeze that next operation in, it's going to cost you more to come back and have them finish up later. Might as well bite the bullet and be late to that next appointment.