Forty Thousand

Same Blue Cross plan. Same knee replacement. An hour apart on a North Carolina map.

At Catawba Valley in Hickory: about sixteen thousand dollars. At Mission in Asheville: about forty thousand. More than double. Serif Health pulled the numbers out of the price files hospitals are supposed to post. Mission was built by merging the two hospitals in town. Then it lobbied the profit caps off. Then HCA bought the monopoly.

I am not shocked. When you are the only hospital, you are not a price. You are a premium.

A nurse in Asheville tore her meniscus skiing. Mission said over nine thousand for the scope. She walked. An outpatient shop did it for less than a third. That is what a posted number is for. Shopping.

I am not anti-insurance. Keep a policy for the wreck. I am anti a ZIP code that doubles the invoice. We take care of patients for a flat monthly fee. No claim. No network. The number on the door is the number you pay.

Forty thousand is a price. It just only shows up if somebody bothers to compare the next town over.