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Permalink Like (1) Dislike I have a suspicious mole on my back, and would like a dermatologist to look at it. But FIRST, I want to know:
A: What will the dermatologist charge?
B: How much if anything will my insurance cover?
So the question is whether it is even possible in America to know in advance what a visit will really cost the patient.
I'll keep my experience updated here.
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46 male
Menlo Park, CA
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Yes, I know the insurance companies are hard to work with, but couldn't you, as a doctor, just set up an "express lane" in your office for people who choose to pay cash on the spot? Those people could then deal with their own insurance company if they want to try to get reimbursement.
I guess the insurance company would still contact you to confirm what you did, but at least then you'd have your payment up front.
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Newbury Park, CA
Why not just go see your primary care doctor? That's part of the problem in America, especially those who are educated. The patient has a problem, and immediately they feel like they need to see the specialist.
As an FP in our office, we'll do a punch biopsy for cash $140-150. Pathology reading is about $50 if you pay cash. If it turns out to be cancer, then you get referred to a derm. If you go insurance, then we'll bill the procedure code which will be $200 plus. My guess for a lab through insurance will probably be at least twice the cash price. Note, not all doctors offices will accommodate cash pricing for patients nor will they necessarily have a cash arrangement with the lab they're dealing with. We feel that our pricing for cash patients are reasonable, so we never negotiate with patients for cash. They don't want to pay that price, they are more than welcome to seek care elsewhere.
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Why not just take a photo with a ruler next to it and check it again in a few weeks to see if it's changed? Also, if you visit Mexico from time to time, medical services are 80% cheaper there, and all cash.
Meanwhile, drxrayman is right: government and insurance have wrecked American medicine for both doctors and patients. DTC drug ads, mandatory continuing medical education (PhRMA informercials doctors must pay for unless they prescribe profitably enough), mandatory malpractice insurance, billing codes, etc. Only solution is to take care of your own health.
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Monterey, CA
curious2 says
That and parts of Costa Rica are supposed to have really good medical care as well.
As an experiment one day, I priced out dental work (fillings, crowns, teeth implants) in Costa Rica at the "best" clinics, vs. what my copay is with my insurance company here in the states.
Turns out, my COPAY was about the same price as the regular price in CR - across the board for ALL procedures.
So my take? Cut out the middleman - the insurance companies. They are the ones raping the system, cutting a chunk out of your paycheck, and turning this entire thing upside down.
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Fair Oaks, CA
Hi Patrick,
The billing code depends on the location and size of the mole. Just the removal is a code from 11400-11406. There would be another code for the pathology report.
And the 99201 is the code for an initial consultation. 99211 would be the code if you've seen that Dr. before and are an established patient.
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Patrick says
Yes, you can... just call the front office for a quote.
Usually they go for $50-75.
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This is exactly why we need single payer. Same price for everybody. No gaming the system.
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Alameda, CA
You know Patrick, you've said you don't like Kaiser Permanente in the past but one of the big advantages is that its a single organization. Meaning there's no back-and-forth between the doctor, the hospital/clinic and the insurance co.
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San Jose, CA
bdrasin says
It also means that if you have an emergency out of network you are uninsured, also the rates they charge to the uninsured with the misfortune to need treatment in one of their centers is as bad as anyone else. That Kaiser may look from certain angles 'better' is a sad reflection of our sick profiteer based healthcare. They are not the answer, rather they are one of the originators of our twisted system.
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Zlxr says
Good idea, time and materials seems like a decent way to go. However, any system can be rigged and abused.
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drxrayman says
Xray, would you be happy with time and materials?
I realize such a system is not a simple as it sounds, because there is nurse time, doctor time, etc that have to be timed carefully, and one cannot have a simple and regular N*15min (N=1,2,3,....) patient schedule if everything is timed in detail.
Then there is operating room rent, hired OR nurses, whether materials can be marked up, whether you are actually buying materials at a good price, etc etc etc.
Could also be somewhat complicated but worth a try.
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burritos says
I remember once I had some moles removed/biopsied, and my primary doctor did give me the option that he would do them rather than send me to the dermatology department. Because I had some other questions for dermatology I chose going there, but I think right now I'd just let the primary do it, because I have a high deductible.
General comment: I think PPO plans (not HMO) with a high deductible is a minefield because they give direct access to specialists, but on the other hand you may end up going to expensive specialists for stuff you do not need and/or the primary could take care of, and end up paying a lot of it out of pocket.
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I think billing codes exist for two primary reasons:
1. A billing code represents a bundle of time, skill level and materials/costs, and hence is relatively simple accounting tool.
2. The code also gives the insurance company a simple way of determining whether a procedure (there is that word again) is covered or not.
Of course, the consumer does not get access to the system of billing codes, which is a big problem.
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46 male
Menlo Park, CA
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bdrasin says
Can they tell you costs in advance?
justme says
Perhaps an opportunity for Patrick.net! Are the billing codes on your bills? Yes, looking through old bills, it seems they are.
So maybe if everyone entered their billing codes, description, the provider, insurance, and what it cost and what was covered, then we would all finally have the info we need to fight back.
Kind of like gasbuddy.com tracks local gas prices. Doesn't change the fundamentals, but at least tells you which of your bad options would be the least bad.
If people enter the data anonymously, then privacy is protected too.
Huge pain to type all that in though. Too bad you can't get digital medical bills.
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Saint George, UT
elliemae's website
bdrasin says
Kaiser is the original HMO. It is designed to deny benefits and limit treatment. Single payer system would be different, in that it would be designed to actually treat people and help them.
Zlxr says
People go to medical school because they want to be physicians. You're crazy if you think that they're focused on how to get paid while they're attending school. When they graduate and begin practicing, they learn the billing systems. Insurance companies created the system.
The billing systems, coding and such, are crazy as evidenced by Patrick's odyssey getting a mole check. It should be simple - but it's not. New patients are billed at different amounts, and everything requires a code. Insurance pays according to the code, procedures & surgeries depend upon the codes that have already been submitted. For example, cardiac surgery won't be approved until the stress tests are all completed.
Sure, some tests seem redundant or unnecessary - but sometimes they're the only way a health condition can be detected. They can run tests for a couple of days straight and find nothing until the very last results come in... it's not just liability that they're worried about when they run these tests - they're actually trying to diagnose someone.
curious2 says
I work with many people who have self-diagnosed and, as a practitioner of end-of-life care I'd like to thank you in advance for this advice. I'll be working with the people who take this delightful medical advice over the interwebs. However, please remember that being treated out of the country can kill you and shipping your body back is expensive. Followup treatment is also expensive, due to the need for fixing the shit that non-trained physicians can do to you. But I don't mean to discourage my future patients - mama needs a new pair of tenny-runners (shoes).
justme says
PPO's give you the freedom of choice and the opportunity to see a specialist - something not always offered with an HMO. You can't be treated out of town except in case of emergency - meaning going to City of Hope for cancer treatment isn't an option. Considering that they specialize in such treatments, do you really want your life decided by suits rather than lab coats?
Dermatologists leave smaller scars, if any. There's a reason this is a specialty.
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elliemae says
Yes, now that you mention it, that was one of my concerns, too. I think the dermatologist did leave a visible scar, too, though. I think she used some sort of small triangular shaped loop knife, about 4-5mm at the base, to "deep shave" the mole off, for a lack of a better term.
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treatmentreport's website
Patrick.
when I designed http://www.treatmentreport.com I originally wanted to include price information for "treatments" and procedures with codes. After doing a pilot with price information, I realized that there were very few people in the same situation as I am (high deductible HSA PPO). It was difficult to collect price information because most people still don't care. Anthem has all of their negotiated rates in the database. It would not take much for them to make that info public, but they don't. Maybe when more and more people are forced onto high deductible plans, they will demand more pricing info.
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treatmentreport says
Good idea, I will definitely take a look at that one.
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treatmentreport's website
We used to have the price information as a field but since so few people entered it, now it's just in with the treatment description Here is an example: http://www.treatmentreport.com/cases/everything-you-need-to-know-about-knee-arthroscopy/1352/
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46 male
Menlo Park, CA
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treatmentreport says
I like treatmentreport.com. So it tells people how the various treatments panned out?
I hope you'll put that price field back in. I certainly care about price, but then I'm one of those self-employed people with a high-deductible HSA PPO.
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Newbury Park, CA
elliemae says
Not designed to deny benefits, but yes to reasonably limit unnecessary procedures and evaluations within standards of medical care. Do you believe that any patient for any reason is entitled to see whatever physician and get whatever test they want at any time? Most patients do, but this way of medicine is sustainable. Do you know how many how many 20 year old's I see every week who come in with chest pain and shortness of breath because of anxiety and stress?. Of course these patients google their ailments and think they need chest xrays, stress tests, echo cardiograms, and chest CT scans to make sure they don't have heart attacks, pulmonary embolus's, cancer etc... Do you think I'm limiting their care if I don't do these tests that the internet told these patients to get or not sending them to the specialist ASAP?
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burritos says
Yes. And of course also countries with single payer systems have to put in these kinds of limits. Do you really think that in Canada, Sweden or Cuba people get any kind of procedure or test they can imagine? No, doctors follow standards set by administrators that consider both costs and benefits.
In general I would say US health care is so expensive for two major (and many minor) reasons. The two major reasons are
1) The administrative nightmare of government - individuals - hospitals - insurers
2) The use of any number of high cost, small (but not zero) benefit tests and procedures that are not used in other developed countries.
I don't see much hope of reform because very few are willing to challenge 1) and nobody is willing to challenge 2).
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I agree with drtor, and I love how two comments (copied below) balance each other:
elliemae says
burritos says
Both elliemae and burritos are working with unrepresentative samples of the population. Everybody dies eventually, but elliemae gets those who are unlucky enough to be dying slowly. Burritos gets the hypochondriacs who worry about the worst case scenario, then maybe get killed in a car wreck on the way home from their latest unnecessary medical appointment. Unrepresentative samples provide examples of what _can_ happen, but they don't provide much information about risk analysis.
Everybody gets suspicious moles, I'll stick with my digital camera rather than pay to enter a medical-industrial complex fraught with overtreatment and often injurious procedures. Eventually something must kill me, but probably not a mole, and definitely not a collision en route to having a biopsy without even checking whether a mole is naturally stable.
Besides, if you have to wait for an appointment, a photo provides a baseline.
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Saint George, UT
elliemae's website
curious2 says
No, not all of them.
I have no problem with people monitoring their healthcare condition - if a mole isn't itching, not growing and not disclored, probably not necessary to have it seen right away. Maybe never, everyone has moles.
I agree that the plural of anecdote is not data. But I also don't deal with data. I deal with people who are dying. My client population has a prognosis of six months or less if their disease runs its normal, natural course. I don't see healthy people, other than the family members or caregivers. Sure, my view is skewed.
However, many of the cancer patients I see either chose to ignore the symptoms when they first presented themselves or chose to treat them holistically. IMHO, that simply doesn't work.
Like the guy (?) who said he's healthy and doesn't need insurance, people need to treat their bodies better all the time. Limit the crap they eat, load up on fresh foods and veggies, drink water and exercise. That's one of the secrets to a better life as you age - but it doesn't guarantee that you'll live longer or without the need for doctors. I'm always impressed when someone who has a cold takes vitamin C, believing that it will cure them. The time to take vitamins would be all along, not when you're symptomatic.
burritos - HMO's work, in theory. No, people don't need every test under the sun that the interwebs introduces to us. It's good for patients to be educated but not to believe that they're experts. It's a positive thing for them to document their symptoms and how they're treating them (ice, hot baths, yoga, etc) in addition to the treatment prescribed by the MD. It's important that patients follow the treatment plan set by their doc to see what works.
However, HMO's limit patient choice. For example, if a patient requires rehabilitation, the HMO might contract with 2 facilities even though there are 20 in the area. This means longer drives for family members at the very least. Since HMO's contract rate is often substantially less than the Medicare rate. Using Las Vegas for example, some of the nursing homes (aka skilled nursing facilities) that contract with HMOs are the crappiest ones with histories of below average care.
Specialists out of town are out. Receiving care from the expert in the field is out. For people who are "snowbirds," that live in the North in the summer and the South in the winter, they aren't able to see a doctor unless there's an emergency. I've witnessed procedures that were denied more often than approved - even tho the primary physician believes it to be necessary.
Medications are limited according to the formulary the insurance company has chosen - doesn't matter what the MD prescribes.
Medicine should be left to the practitioners, not to the pencil pushers. It shouldn't be for-profit. I don't mean that practitioners shouldn't be paid - they should. However, insurance companies and more specifically HMO's make their huge fucking profits by denying benefits, limiting benefits, and treating patients like numbers who don't matter.
Gonna hop off my soapbox now.
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Dr. Kirk A. Churukian (http://www.drchurukian.com)
one mole removal goes for $250
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Newbury Park, CA
elliemae says
HMO's do limit choice. The limiting step is the amount of money available. There just isn't an infinite amount of resources to supply all the care that all patients want. I don't work for Kaiser, but have many friends and family who are physicians who do. These physicians are getting killed. And I take umbrage of the characterization that they are there to deny care. The are a non profit organization that works as hard as they can to follow evidence based medicine I know for a fact that Kaiser's CEO/chief is an MD, who make maybe 25-50% more than your fellow MD, but not like the Health Net and Aetna CEO's who make 10's of millions of dollars a year which are dollars that could go to patient care. British Medical Journal ranked them as delivering a higher quality care compared to Britain's NHS. If people want "PPO" care they should just pay for it. I take care of "PPO" patients. If they want disjointed care where the specialists only want to take care of them solely based on the fact that they have "PPO" insurance, then have at it, but believing that it's superior care without limits is a fallacy.
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Newbury Park, CA
curious2 says
Yes, but unrepresentative experiences can and do skew the way medicine is conducted. I have a colleague who once encountered a 20 year old college student who had flu like symptoms. She had fever, chills, bodyache, and some cold like symptoms. She treated her with anti virals. That patient came back the next day and say me. She looked a lot more ill and I sent to the ER. She ended up having meningitis, she seized in the ER, was on life support system for a week. She lived but suffered brain damage and went from college student to life time 10 year old IQ. My colleague was sued and settled(because she was caught changing the patient records, not because of quality of care). Nonetheless, to this day, that colleague of mine, sends a disproportionate of her flu patients to the ER. The point is, when you base care on what "your" doctor thinks is best, it may deviate from the standard of care based on what that individual doctor has experienced.
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burritos says
That is an excellent point, the availabilility heuristic. Medical schools train doctors to think of the worst case scenario, which tends to rationalize more expensive (and dangerous) treatment. It is a cycle that also reinforces the overemphasis on specialists, and payment based on specialized training rather than value delivered. BTW I thought current anti-virals had to be taken in advance for flu/cold symptoms, so I wouldn't have expected that treatment choice; MIT announced an experimental broad-spectrum anti-viral that might work someday, but not yet.
Meanwhile I would feel safer with a nurse practitioner who has healthy grandchildren, because her experience has taught her to think of the most likely diagnosis rather than the most expensive. I've had suspicious moles that haven't changed in decades, so when I wonder about a mole I reach for my camera not a knife. "Suspicious" tends to be an attribute of mental state, e.g. if the mind is worried about something else on a particular day, then it is primed to worry about every conceivable thing, and a previously unremarkable or unnoticed mole can suddenly look suspicious.
BTW regarding the litigation and changing the record, it sounds like a Martha Stewart problem. Most doctors don't get sued, and even then most don't lose, but changing evidence can send people to prison. It must be a big temptation, because it happens, but if exposed it destroys the doctor's credibility. Ironically, although sincerely apologizing for an error may increase the theoretical risk of liability, it tends to defuse the situation and reduce the likelihood of getting sued.
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Baltimore, MD
curious2 says
I was going to say that the code would also depend upon the size of the mole. The bigger the mole, the more expensive it is.
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Baltimore, MD
Of course the doctors don't want you to know how much the office visit is going to be in advance, since if you knew, you would shop around.
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Baltimore, MD
thomas.wong1986 says
Nice that you can get a quote, but the price is still outrageous.
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Saint George, UT
elliemae's website
burritos says
How much does Mr. Halvorson make? just curious
burritos says
The physicians aren't there to deny care - the case managers & administrative staff take care of that. Everything must be in-plan and pre-authorized. This system isn't perfect, because of the inability to receive a second opinion from an out-of-plan physician who may be an expert in the field. Please don't get your panties in a knot over this - IMHO when you restrict the ability to access providers you often restrict the chances for a positive outcome. Not always, but it happens.
burritos says
I didn't say there aren't limits - but HMO's only work in a specific area and for the above mentioned reasons they're not always the best option. An example would be Mesquite Nevada (pop 10,000), where an HMO in Vegas came in and signed a shitload of seniors (Medicare HMO) onto their plan in 2000. There was one local physician and no nursing home/rehab provider; at that time there was also no hospital. So people had to go to Las Vegas - 1-1/2 hours away - to be treated, receive rehab, etc even though there was a regional hospital half an hour away. Things aren't much better now, they have a teeny hospital but the majority of treatment must be provided in Las Vegas.
In this example, the HMO limits the ability for patients to be seen and treated by a nearby provider. HMO's only work in urban areas, and limit the patient's right to choose providers.
curious2 says
It's hard to falsify the medical record and get away with it - everyone's charting has to support everyone else's. If a doc changes something, it doesn't jive with the nurses, emt, social worker (if there is one), etc. Most docs I've met are dedicated and caring, and I doubt they'd falsify the records.
Burritos, you're on the medical side. I'm on the hospital case management side. I've seen my share of denials - and it ain't pretty. Let's agree to disagree that Kaiser is awesome - but we both agree that most physicians and medical providers are cool.
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Alameda, CA
Patrick says
I'm sure they can. Not sure if they will :-(
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Alameda, CA
drtor says
This is just an anecdote, but my father dislocated his shoulder while working in Sweden. It was the weekend and a nurse decided (much to his displeasure) that it could wait until Monday and sent him home with some pain killers. On Monday, the doctor told him that he would recover from the injury without medical intervention beyond pain medication and some physical therapy. Again, he was pissed and wanted to know what they could do to fix him right away but it was to no avail. Of course the doctor was correct and he gradually got better over the course of six months.
I don't know for sure, but I suspect in the US the case wouldn't have been discharged so cheaply; there would have been more incentive for tests/treatment that wouldn't have really made a difference (at least once they found out he had insurance).
Anyway, this is kind of getting off - topic...
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Fair Oaks, CA
elliemae says
George makes 8+ million per year in direct compensation, and has numerous pensions on top of that. Kaiser is now trying to get rid of the single pension that its (non MD) workers have.
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Fair Oaks, CA
Zlxr says
The problem is that codes can change annually, not the actual number of codes. However a biller/coder would be able to stay on top of that for the salary you pay for a good medical assistant.
With ICD-10 coding system coming out, there's going to be a lot of headaches for the practices that aren't ready for it. I can see major problems there.
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Fair Oaks, CA
elliemae says
Having worked for Kaiser I can tell you that the medical foundation certainly imposes limits on how much your MD is allowed to treat you, they are just very sly about it.
One example- they keep records of how many CT's/MRI's every doctor orders. You do not want to be number one on that list at the end of the month unless you like having "talks" with your chief.
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Newbury Park, CA
elliemae says
The former CEO of Southern California Kaiser Permanente was Jeffrey Weisz. He was a 20+ oncologist before he went from Chief of Woodland Hills to Head of Kaiser. The word of mouth from Kaiser docs was his base pay was 350k(not knocking it out of the ball park for oncologists)+25% as top administer. Word is that his last year he was given a out the door bonus for meeting his stated goals(number one in colon ca screening and mammographies for southern california medical groups), which was about 100k. It's a lot of money but easily 2 logs lower than your typical ceo with a golden parachute that did nothing but increase stock price. He was quickly head hunted by the Northwest Kaiser group to improve their situation. Is Kaiser awesome? No, nothing about medicine is awesome. But as someone who serves a lot PPO insurance, Kaiser I think is much better IMO.
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Newbury Park, CA
elliemae says
How funny. I'm in Zion this week. Were these patients mandated to join the LV group or could they have joined a closer group? I'm guessing they could have but would have had to pay more to join that group. There are a lot a timbuktu's all over the country. Are insurances obligated provide state of the art facilities for everyone everywhere? You know there's not enough money even in China to do this.
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Saint George, UT
elliemae's website
No, there's only the LV groups they could join because the insurance doesn't reach across state lines.
Insurance plans are required to have providers, but not necessarily in your area. So, if there's no contracted pharmacy near your home it's not their problem. Same with hospitals, or MD's, etc. To rehab, patients in Mesquite have to go to Las Vegas. Family can't visit, transporation home is a problem if they don't have cars (many don't, Mesquite is quite depressed) and going to the doc is an all-day ordeal. The insurance marketers who are paid $500 each pt to sign on service and a bonus if they stay on after 5 years certainly don't tell them this - and signing off service is almost as hard as getting girls gone wild to stop sucking $$$ out of your bank account after the free trial.
My favorite (easy) Zion hike is the overlook trail right after the tunnel - it's a mile hike and absolutely beautiful. When I was little, we used to run through the tunnel holding a stick hitting the walls to orient us because it was so dark. When a car came we'd jump between the supports - it's called "tunnel running." It sure freaked people out when they thought they'd seen ghosts in the tunnel. Unfortunately they closed the tunnel to that sort of thing. It was fun.
Since you're here, have you been to Snow Canyon (up hwy 18 in St. George)? It's gorgeous - at least drive through it on your way back to civilization.