Gee, Does Medical Tourism Mean I Can Go To Appleton???

by LAS

I ran across a mention that a hip replacement costs only about $27,000 in Appleton, Wisconsin, while it can cost as much as $126,000 in a major metro area such as Houston, Texas. Why the disparity?

Obviously wide variations in income levels between major metro areas and smaller towns are a big factor. But also the fact that the hospital has to pay much higher property taxes and other expenses in a big city is another major factor. It may also have to buy another lot to build a parking structure on for patients and visitors, while the small town has free street parking.

The small town hospital might also sacrifice some frills, too. 

AARP Files Suit to Release Medicare Claims Data

AARP and Consumers’ Checkbook have filed freedom of information act requests to get Medicare claims information released to the public. Their purpose is to better serve the public and provide a better understanding of the operations of this government agency. The court however did not agree, so now the suit has gone to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.
Maybe you feel, as AARP does, that the 43 million Americans who are serviced by this department deserve to have better information as a basis for comparing hospitals and other medical providers.
AARP’s brief notes that transparency is particularly needed because the current state of publicly reported health care quality and cost information is inadequate with regard to physician-level data in the Medicare program, which has lagged behind private efforts to make physician-specific health care information more transparent.
You may contact either of these two AARP employees to voice your concerns or give a show of support.
Stacy Canan at scanan@aarp.org -- Bruce Vignery at bvignery@aarp.org (202) 434-2060
Story URL: http://www.aarp.org/research/legal-advocacy/aarp_asks_court_to_order_release_of_medicare_data.html