Cost of Health Care

Hospital Services

When you and your doctor decide to use hospital services, you can hold down costs by checking your health insurance coverage before scheduling the hospital stay.

Checklist: Before you check into the hospital:

• If possible, discuss the costs of the procedure with your doctor's office.
• Call the hospital's billing department and ask what they'll charge you for room and board, and what items cost extra.
• Ask if you can bring your own box of tissues or slippers - anything of your own that you can bring to avoid buying theirs.
• Ask your doctor if the hospital will allow you to bring your own prescriptions to the hospital.
• Check to be sure everyone who treats you in the hospital will be a participating provider in your health insurance plan.
• Ask what bills you may receive apart from the hospital's - such a outpatient testing, radiology charges for reading x-rays, and other specialists and consultants.

While most people are satisfied with their hospital stay, it's the bill that comes afterward that can be a problem. Even when you have insurance, you still pay a portion of your hospital expenses. So be a smart consumer and pay attention to your hospital bill - just as you should review the accuracy of charges on any other bill you pay.

Having surgery?

If you need non-emergency outpatient surgery, you can save money if you do a little investigating first. Check to see whether your health plan covers the surgery and how your costs differ depending on where the surgery is performed.

If your healthcare plan covers the surgery, ask your doctor whether you can go to an ambulatory surgery center (ASC). By having surgery there, you may keep more money in your pocket.

But before your doctor schedules surgery, call the facility and ask what the charges will be. This should be no secret. You have a right to know. If the ASC won't supply this information, ask your doctor to recommend another facility that will. Today, as much as half of all surgeries are done on an outpatient basis. Unlike urgent care centers, ASCs are not for diagnosis or routine medical treatment; they only treat patients whose doctors have selected surgery as an appropriate treatment.

Don't go to the emergency room for non-emergencies

If you don't know where the closest urgent care center to your home is, it may be a good idea to find out - so next time you need care right away, you won't have to wait hours in a hospital emergency room.

It may be a best-kept secret, but urgent care centers often provide a good medical and financial alternative when you can't see your regular doctor, and the illness or injury is relatively minor. Along with several other advantages, the urgent care or walk-in center is usually a lot less expensive than the emergency room at your local hospital.

Don't wait until you get the bill to find out that when you go to the emergency room for a non-emergency, you can end up with a hefty bill to pay. That's because ERs suffer from overuse. They become overcrowded with people who don't have life-threatening conditions or a major illness. Misuse of emergency services not only drives up healthcare costs, but it also strains hospital staff and puts emergency patients at risk.

Smart choices

So the next time you go racing down the road with a crying five-year-old with a sore throat, ask yourself: how serious is this? Do I need to sit in the emergency room waiting room for hours to see a doctor, or do I want something that more resembles going to my doctor's office? Then ask yourself, where's the closest urgent care center?

Emergencies are costly in more ways than one. Going to an urgent care center just might be a better choice - medically and financially. When injury and illness strike at inconvenient times:

• Call your doctor if he or she is available
• Consider whether it's a major emergency
• Make your best treatment decision
• Consider the urgent care center down the street that may save you time and money

Healthcare expense breakdown

Learn more about how your healthcare dollar breaks down:

15 cents of every healthcare dollar goes to prescription drugs

Watch Healthcare Video: Why is Healthcare so Expensive?