$1,133 to Clip a Toenail

How about that! How would you like to go to the hospital for some problem with your toe, they clip your toenail and run some tests (I first got this information on my cell phone and the tests were about a fungus,) and then they charge you what you would pay for two nights at the Plaza Hotel in New York City. Nice. I wonder if the nail clipper was made of gold, the chair the patient was sitting in was upholstered in Italian leather, and they were playing some relaxing New Age music in the background. This is outrageous, and fortunately a lot of people, including doctors working for the hospital (who got billed the same amount for the same procedure -- you'd think they'd have an employee-discount program or something...) and the judge in charge of the case, who just made it into a class lawsuit, which should bring stiffer penalties. It's about time. The health care system in America is so badly managed and geared towards making money instead of helping the suffering.

Virginia Mason officials say the downtown operation is authorized by Medicare to charge higher fees because it is licensed as a hospital, and they maintain that such charges are a standard industry practice. Extending the lawsuit to cover other Virginia Mason patients who have been billed for such fees, Judge Gregory P. Canova said the main question is whether those charges were properly disclosed or were unfair or deceptive. [...] One unidentified doctor who had a procedure on his own toe at the downtown complex e-mailed Virginia Mason chief executive Dr. Gary Kaplan last year after being billed $1,200, including a facilities charge of $1,138. "I call it obscene," the doctor fumed. "There has to be some sense of appropriateness/fairness/reasonableness to our charges." Another, Allan Kayne, a dermatologist, complained after one of his patients was billed for $1,361, including a $754 facilities fee. "These charges are not only excessive but an embarrassment to me and the medical center," Kayne wrote.

Well said. It's nice to see that at least not all doctors are greedy bastards.