How Hospital Price Floors Keep Care Expensive Even When You Pay Cash

Episode 18 of Services Economy with Fexingo. Why paying cash for a hospital procedure often costs more than an insured rate, thanks to a little-known pricing mechanism called 'chargemaster minus discount' and the contractual floors that insurers and hospitals bake into their agreements. Lucas and Luna break down how chargemaster rates function as a price ceiling for insurers but a price floor for uninsured and cash-paying patients, using the example of a $35,000 knee MRI that costs $2,000 for an insurer but $12,000 for a cash patient. They explain the role of the 'cash discount' policies that some hospitals now advertise, and why those discounts don't fix the underlying problem of opaque, inflated list prices. The episode also touches on the stalled government price transparency rules and what a real market-rate system might look like. #HealthcarePricing #Chargemaster #HospitalCosts #CashPayHealthcare #PriceTransparency #MedicalBills #HealthInsurance #OutOfPocket #HealthcareEconomics #ServicesEconomy #Economics #FexingoBusiness #BusinessPodcast #Podcast #MedicalDebt #HospitalBilling #CashDiscount #UninsuredPatients Keep every episode free: buymeacoffee.com/fexingo