June 30, 2008
Technical innovation and the rising cost of health care
A recent NYTimes.com article talks about cardiologists buying CT scanners and the cost of using new technology in health care:
CT scans, which are typically billed at $500 to $1,500, have never been proved in large medical studies to be better than older or cheaper tests.
Some medical experts say the American devotion to the newest, most expensive technology is an important reason that the United States spends much more on health care than other industrialized nations — more than $2.2 trillion in 2007, an estimated $7,500 a person, about twice the average in other countries — without providing better care.
Vijay, who is a practicing radiologist in India, wonders why a CT scan cost so much in the US:
An abdomen scan at my department costs Rs. 350 (about $ 9 - yes nine dollars). We most often do not charge anything extra for an abdomen scan that goes on to become a transvaginal scan - as it would in case it turns out to be something like an ovarian cyst. So the lady gets two scans for the price of one.
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Posted by David Porter at 08:00 AM
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Category: Health Care; Health Care Costs
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Comments
Thanks for the mention & link David.
The paragraph that you've quoted from my post talks about abdominal ultrasound scans.
The relevant paragraph about CT scans would be this one...
"We have a basic four-slice MDCT scanner in our hospital. A patient would be charged Rs. 3500 ($ 90, yes ninety dollars) for a plain CT scan or Rs. 4500 ($ 115) for a contrast CT scan of the whole abdomen. Ours is a small city. The charges are likely to be as high as Rs. 8000 or Rs. 9000 ($ 200 to 230) in the bigger metros like Chennai, Mumbai or Delhi."
I don't agree with everything that the NYT article says. I'll post in my blog about what I don't agree with.