Shocking Facts About Hospital Bills: Kendall Immediate Care
October 10, 2010 in Immediate Care
If you live in Montgomery, you need not look far for a doctor in Montgomery. At Kendall Immediate Care, well-trained, experienced medical doctors and other medical professionals are standing by to serve you by providing accurate diagnoses and the most up-to-date medical treatments, whenever injury or illness strikes. Kendall Immediate Care walk in clinic provides a welcome alternative to hospital emergency departments, which generally charge exorbitant prices, even for the small creature comforts, like cough drops, a teddy bear for a child, or an ice pack. On a typical hospital bill, a patient might find a “cough support device” on the list of billable items when, in reality, this usually refers to cough drops. Furthermore, “thermal therapy”, a “gauze collection bag”, and a “cotton professional” on a hospital bill is generally code for an ice pack, a garbage bag, and a q-tip, respectively. The mark-up on these items is generally one hundred times or more the original cost of the item to the hospital. For instance, an ice pack might cost the hospital thirty-five cents, but it will show up as thirty-five dollars on the bill. Immediate care centers have their patients’ interests in mind, both medically and financially, so the bill will be realistic and affordable.
Harbor Health Retail Clinic Overview conducted a study to compare the costs of a hospital emergency room versus a non urgent care center. The results of the study showed that the average cost of an ear infection treated at a hospital emergency department was one hundred eighty-four dollars, compared to one hundred thirty-five dollars at the walk-in non urgent care center. This particular example does not illustrate an enormous price gap, but nevertheless price analysts agree that you will pay more for the exact same services at a hospital emergency room than at an immediate care center.
Note that the quality of care between admission to a hospital and the treatment received on an outpatient basis at an immediate care center is largely the same. While there may be differences between individual medical facilities, the majority of the medical doctors and other medical professionals staffed at non urgent care centers have been employed by a hospital emergency department, but generally they changed medical facilities to meet the American public’s need for readily available, affordable health care. Do the math and you will find that it pays to listen to your wallet!
