Why An MRI Costs More In The US?

This gets complicated when the person's insurance isn't national. So the out of state MRI is cheaper overall, but only receives out of network coverage for the patient. Which adds a another level to shopping around.

 

Since we are talking about MRIs, there is another side to this story, but it still revolves around medical insurance. I used to design MRI machines for a living. I had a staff of engineers, programmers, and scientists, all working on the next generation of MRI scanners. We also worked on sequences, techniques, and accessories for the existing machines.

What we designed was limited by what the market would buy. What the market would buy was limited by what insurance would reimburse. What insurance would reimburse was limited by accepted procedure. It was a massive chicken and the egg problem, producing a Catch 22 situation which drove up the cost of new technology.

Tom

 

But don't you want a free market system which allows you to choose who will give you CPR when you need it? Because with today's system, you dial 911 - the government!! -- and the government decides for you. You don't get to choose your ambulance driver or EMT. There's no freedom in this socialist approach.

 

You know this is a difficult topic folks will argue over forever. There are articles that will show which choice is better or worse depending on who you read. Some things to consider in this discussion or debate excluding cost is availability and wait times.

I don't have the interest to try and compile statistics from all the countries mentioned so I will stick to an instances I'm quite aware of that happened with 2 Canadian friends. They both had a health problem that required an MRI and surgery afterwards. This health condition is fatal if left untreated long term. Friend 1 mortgaged her house and came to the US with cash. Hospitals will lower prices if you ask for cash payment. ( I know you shouldn't have to.). She got her tests, diagnoses and surgery and went home. Friend 2 didn't have the resources of friend 1 so stayed home to address her health problems. It was 5 months wait for the MRI and another 4 months for surgery that was a thousand miles from home for an experienced surgeon. Friend 2 died last year. Friend 1 ended up challenging the government and getting reimbursed for the majority of her medical costs. (this is the very basic summary)

For me I'd rather pay a little more if I have a problem and get everything fixed immediately. My quality of life is worth that to me. Addressing any problem quickly be it a leaky roof or a bad headache gives a higher probability better outcome in the long run. In the US just about every hospital is equipped to handle their patient load and from what I've been told talking about socialized medicine to people who work within that system say people suffer waiting. I don't want me or my family to suffer.
Somewhere out there is a statistic on joint replacement where the US is substantially higher than either Canada or the UK. If my elderly parent was stuck in a wheelchair waiting for a joint everything else atrophies as they wait possibly causing further issues down the road.

So my point is all politics aside is it is more than the dollar amount to be considered. I place a lot of value on quality of life and availability. Again remember I have not done a worldwide study, only sharing my personal observations here.

And yes prevention needs to be taught at an early age and practiced. I was lucky my parents did this with me but prevention can't solve every problem either so we do need a good balance. I'm not knocking other countries healthcare just stating my personal preferences.

My $.02.
W

 

The word you are looking for is "civilized." You live in a civilized country. I do not.

The moral here: The rich get better care and get it faster. A rich person in the U.S.A. gets better and faster care than a poor person in Canada. But a poor person in Canada gets much better care than a poor person in the U.S.A.

Too much gets written about emergency care. Not enough about routine wellness care. In that area, the working poor in the U.S. get none at all.

With a one-payer system we'd cut the cost of medical care by a third just because we wouldn't need two workers for every doctor to file the insurance paperwork, and three for every doctor in the insurance companies to handle the paper at their end and figure out which claims to deny, and how much to pay of the claims that are not denied. Because when insurance pays, it only pays part. It takes a lot of work to figure out how much.

Another third could be cut by a simple change in how we handle malpractice: If all medical care was free, people would not need to sue for damages in malpractice cases. Then make malpractice a criminal procedure rather than a civil one: If a doctor is guilty of malpractice he should lose his license to practice, and if there was criminal intent or reckless disregard, he should go to prison. Take the money out of it. Then doctors would not need to pay outrageous premiums for malpractice insurance because the only times a malpractice case would go to court is when there's a grand jury indictment, rather than any time somebody thinks they got a bad outcome and can find a lawyer to take it on speculation.

 

Certainly. Insurance will only pay for certain procedures, which is why most insurance programs have a pre-approval process. These approved procedures are ones that have proven cost effective in the past. If a hospital buys an MRI machine and does these approved procedures, the hospital is assured of being paid.

Now let's say that I develop a new machine that will detect cancer. A hospital administrator looks at this new machine and thinks it is great, so the hospital buys one and has it installed. Unfortunately, since this machine is new, it is not an approved procedure by any insurance company. The hospital ends up eating the entire cost of the new machine. Hospitals can't afford to do that, so they wait for common insurance acceptance of any piece of equipment. The exception is research, which is not funded by insurance.

Tom