For employers and plan sponsors · Medicare inpatient margin · 2024
Why your hospital rates are what they are
Half the surgical work at a typical hospital does not cover its cost under Medicare. Nobody stops doing it. Somebody covers the difference, and if you buy commercial coverage, that somebody is you.
Ben Tenner · measured, sourced, reproducible
135%
Cardiac stenting, cost vs payment
the LEAST device-intensive
procedure we measured
Stenting costs the hospital more than Medicare pays for it. Joint replacement roughly breaks even. Yet a joint replacement is half hardware by cost, and a stent case is only a fifth. So the device is not what decides it. The rate is.