IMPLANT COSTS – A HEALTH CARE SECRET (Orthopedics This Week)
How much does a new hip cost? The doctors who implant them do not know, writes Jenny Gold in Kaiser Health News. According to a survey of 503 physicians at seven major academic medical centers published this week inHealth Affairs, they were able to correctly estimate the cost of a device only 21% of the time. Their estimates ranged from 1.8% of the actual price to 24.6 times the cost. Guesses within 20% of the actual cost were ranked as correct.
The survey found that residents were even worse than surgeons at estimating costs. Reside...
