{"id":549,"date":"2013-07-26T17:11:55","date_gmt":"2013-07-26T17:11:55","guid":{"rendered":"\/articles\/?p=549"},"modified":"2025-07-08T17:51:10","modified_gmt":"2025-07-08T17:51:10","slug":"breaking-down-hospital-costs-what-you-can-expect-to-pay-for-an-overnight-stay","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.online-health-insurance.com\/articles\/analysis\/breaking-down-hospital-costs","title":{"rendered":"Breaking Down Hospital Costs: What You Can Expect To Pay For An Overnight Stay"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Breakdown of What You Can Expect to Pay When Staying Overnight in the Hospital<\/strong><\/h1>\n

Medical Costs\u2026can\u2019t live with \u2018em, can\u2019t live without \u2018em.\u00a0 Healthcare is a topic on everyone\u2019s mind and while the opinions sway back and forth about universal healthcare, Medicaid<\/a>, social security, and prescription drugs, the fact remains that healthcare is expensive.\u00a0 In a consumer market where hospitals can, and do, seem to charge whatever they\u2019d like for procedures, it\u2019s tough to get a clear breakdown of costs.\u00a0 Without the option to shop around (emergencies), patients are left with a bill feeling a bit helpless in the matter.\u00a0 The following is a breakdown of what you can expect to pay when staying overnight in the hospital.<\/p>\n

Where the Costs Come From<\/strong><\/h1>\n

First, medical supply pricing has no bounds.\u00a0 For example, in the supermarket, if you were shopping at a store that sold boxes of cereal for $50, you would make a consumer decision to purchase your cereal somewhere else!\u00a0 This simple example of free-market simply does not apply to emergency care and health care services.\u00a0 You don\u2019t get to decide how much the material in your knee surgery costs; you don\u2019 have much, if any, consumer power.\u00a0 Suppliers know this and are able to rack up a few thousand dollars pretty quick on an overnight or extended hospital stay.<\/p>\n

Coding:<\/strong><\/h1>\n

Where the costs actually come from is a computer with a coder using some universal codes to tell a billing machine what the heck the hospital has been doing to your body the last day or so.\u00a0 These codes trigger the services that you will eventually be billed for<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Other costs include:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Transportation to Hospital (ambulance, taxi)<\/li>\n
  2. Nursing care<\/li>\n
  3. Meals<\/li>\n
  4. x-rays\u00a0 (national average around $450)<\/li>\n
  5. Lab tests<\/li>\n
  6. physical services and physical therapy after treatment (not on hospital bill but something to consider)<\/li>\n
  7. Medications<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Inpatient vs. Outpatient:<\/strong><\/h1>\n

    Inpatient care takes place at the hospital as a planned event.\u00a0 Insurance providers will sometimes have a large deductible, and then cover all additional costs of the care and not treat each day as a new treatment and therefore, a new deductible.\u00a0 Outpatient care takes place outside of a hospital and often doesn\u2019t require hospitalization. It should be noted that insurance companies view these two types of care quite differently with different deductible and eligibility requirements.<\/p>\n

    How Much for Appendicitis and a Hot Meal?<\/strong><\/h1>\n

    This isn\u2019t a balance sheet:\u00a0 the numbers on either side sometimes don\u2019t add up<\/a>.\u00a0 In a study by the Archives of Internal Medicine<\/a>, the median charge for acute appendicitis admissions at 289 medical centers and hospitals throughout California ranged from $1,529 to almost $183,000!\u00a0 There is no set price for surgery and don\u2019t be surprised by a $39 box of Kleenex.\u00a0 So what can you expect to pay? \u00a0Maybe the answer is: \u00a0the unexpected.\u00a0 While insurance will cover a lot of the costs (more on that below), nobody on a big health insurance plan can seem to articulate the parameters.<\/p>\n

    Insurance Coverage:<\/strong><\/h1>\n

    In Network?\u00a0 If you have the luxury to choose the hospital with which you will be admitted, it\u2019s important to ask if it is in your insurance network.\u00a0 Further, during your stay, make sure the services offered are covered each and every time a new service is being provided.<\/p>\n

    \u00a0<\/strong>As shown above, the costs vary widely between hospitals.\u00a0 Some insurance companies allot $1,000 for one stay in the hospital during a coverage year.\u00a0 While the $1,000 dollars certainly would no do much to cover the national average overnight stay of 15,734 (Comparative Price Report).<\/p>\n

    Co-Pay:<\/strong><\/h1>\n

    If insured, the co-pay is a small price to pay for the thousands of dollars saved.\u00a0 Get savvy with your understanding of your insurance plan to know which you\u2019ll be paying a $50 co-pay and when you\u2019ll be paying a $50,000 tab.<\/p>\n

    Deductibles:<\/strong><\/h1>\n

    Assuming you have insurance (which is certainly a good idea) then an overnight stay, or any stay, is going to cost you some or all of your deductible for that service.\u00a0 Here is a list of common premiums and deductibles<\/a>.\u00a0 Deductibles and insurance premiums have an inverse relationship:\u00a0 the more you pay for a premium, the less you have in deductible.\u00a0 The less you pay for a premium, the more you pay for a deductible.<\/p>\n

    Lost Income:<\/strong><\/p>\n

    Not that an overnight hospital stay isn\u2019t costly enough, the loss of income from not being able to work is often forgot about.\u00a0 Unless your employer offers sick time (which even then is limited), an overnight stay at the hospital means no hourly wage.\u00a0 Here is some information on collecting workers compensation<\/a> and disability<\/a>.<\/p>\n

    Discharged:<\/strong><\/h1>\n

    When you\u2019re discharged from the overnight stay(s), you should request an itemized breakdown of the services and charges you can expect to be billed.\u00a0 This might be tricky and it might try to be grouped like a shady business-expensed lunch.\u00a0 Demand it itemized so you can clearly breakdown what your insurance company will pick up the tab for and what you\u2019re going to be responsible for.\u00a0 Overall, the question \u201chow much is this going to cost me\u201d can be complicated, but with some due diligence:\u00a0 finding out which procedures are covered and which are not, itemizing our medical bills, and understanding in-network and out of network costs<\/a>, you can be a savvy overnight guest in any hospital in the country.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Medical Costs\u2026can\u2019t live with \u2018em, can\u2019t live without \u2018em. Healthcare is a topic on everyone\u2019s mind and while the opinions sway back and forth about universal healthcare, Medicaid, social security, and prescription drugs, the fact remains that healthcare is expensive.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-549","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.online-health-insurance.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/549","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.online-health-insurance.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.online-health-insurance.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.online-health-insurance.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.online-health-insurance.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=549"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.online-health-insurance.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/549\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":688,"href":"https:\/\/www.online-health-insurance.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/549\/revisions\/688"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.online-health-insurance.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=549"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.online-health-insurance.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=549"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.online-health-insurance.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=549"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}