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Bonkers pricing of "free" flu shots shows what's wrong with US healthcare
The annual flu shots that are free to those with health insurance are not immune from the convoluted and contemptible price-gouging that plague the US healthcare system.
Health insurance companies pay wildly different amounts for the same vaccines depending on how negotiations go with individual medical providers across the country. In some cases, providers have forced insurers to pay upward of three times the price they would pay to other providers, according to an investigation by Kaiser Health News.
The outlet noted that one Sacramento, California, doctors' office got an insurer to pay $85 for a flu shot that it offered to uninsured patients for $25.
Though $85 might seem like a trifling amount in the bloated scheme of the US healthcare system, such prices quickly add up as tens of millions of people receive a flu shot each year. And while the Affordable Care Act requires insurers to cover the full costs of all federally recommended vaccines, including the flu vaccine, any extra costs to insurers get passed on to patients through higher insurance premiums, economists told KHN.
Looking further at what insurers paid for flu vaccines, KHN found that costs spanned the whole range from $25 to $85. A doctor in Long Beach, California, got insurer Cigna to pay $47.53 for a shot, while a CVS in downtown Washington, DC, got $32 from Cigna for the same shot. A CVS just 10 miles away in Maryland got $40.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by mechanicjay on Thursday November 21 2019, @12:16AM (1 child)
I was actually thinking about something similar this weekend due to a banner hanging on the front of the local Safeway. It read something like "Free Flu Shot with most insurance plans. Enjoy 10% off your next grocery trip with any immunization!"
The only thing I could think of was, given the generally razor thin margins in grocery stores, how much of a killing they must be making on those shots to offer a blanket 10% off your next shopping trip.
My VMS box beat up your Windows box.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Sulla on Thursday November 21 2019, @12:23AM
I also noted that the same advertisement at a local Safeway.
Some inside ball -
Safeway has been culling staff at their pharmacies that do not perform well in pushing Flu shots. At least locally the number of hours a Pharmacist and their techs get to work is directly proportional to the number of Flu shots they sell. Regardless of wait times on other business, you are to ensure that the Flu shots que is processed as quick as possible because they are a higher margin. Non-compliance results in significant hour reductions until employees re-prioritize.
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam