Price Gouging on Your Lab Work - How to Prevent It From Happening to You

Why Are Lab Prices So High?

It’s no surprise that people get ripped off on their lab work. Patients and their families have no idea of the prices of the lab work that they’re having done. Doctors don’t really know either. Next time you get your blood drawn, ask your doctor what it will cost - chances are, they won’t know, or they may say “it will depend on your insurance coverage.”

That’s another issue with the high cost of labs. Hospitals can set prices at whatever level they want for their labs, and then insured patients will get a discount for having an insurance plan, but uninsured patients will be unsheltered from these high costs.

This recently happened to one of our patients - they went to a health care facility and requested labs, and they were charged about $494.72 for some basic labs.

$494.72 was charged to our patient for basic labs, consisting of a comprehensive metabolic panel, complete blood count, thyroid stimulating hormone, a lipid panel, and a hemoglobin a1c, which is a test for diabetes.

In contrast, if that patient had the labs done in our office at Plum Health DPC, their total cost would have been $27.47, a savings of about 94%.

$27.47 was charged to our patient for basic labs, consisting of a comprehensive metabolic panel, complete blood count, thyroid stimulating hormone, a lipid panel, and a hemoglobin a1c, which is a test for diabetes.

How Can You Reduce the Cost of Your Lab Work?

Imagine if you could save 50 to 90% on your primary health care costs?

Rather than spending $500 for labs, you could spend $30 for labs. What would you do with that extra $470?

Rather than spending $3,000 for a knee MRI, you could spend $300 for that same test. What would you do with that extra $2,700?

At Plum Health, our mission is to deliver affordable, accessible healthcare services in Detroit and beyond. So, we’re always looking at ways to save our patients money on health care costs - it’s just what we do.

In short, if you’re looking to save 50 to 90% on your lab workin Detroit or Metro Detroit, reach out to us at Plum Health DPC. If you’re living in another area of the country, look up a local direct primary care doctor near you!

Thanks for reading, and have a wonderful day,

-Dr. Paul Thomas with Plum Health DPC

If you’d like to have this sort of direct primary care service and knowledge that you’re getting the best prices on your medical care, you can sign up here.

A Sample of Lab Test Cost Savings

A friend posted this image on Facebook with the notation: "thank God for health insurance". 

While it's important to have health insurance, it's also important to understand how it inflates and distorts prices for health care. In the above photo, the insurance price for laboratory testing is shown clearly. What's interesting is if these labs were obtained through our clinic, they would have cost a fraction of the amount reported. Here's a test by test comparison:

A comparison of lab costs between typical insurance billing and our prices at Plum Health DPC

What's crazy here is that the person is being billed at a 765% mark-up from the actual cost of the service. This is why health care in America is so much more expensive - hospitals and health care providers dramatically mark up costs and then 'discount' these costs for insurance companies.

This price 'gamesmanship' is bad for health care consumers. It's bad for folks with insurance and even worse for folks who are uninsured. For example, if this person had 80/20 insurance coverage for these labs, they would end up paying $162.20 - the insurance company would 'pay' $658.80 or 80% and the insured person would pay the remaining 20% of costs or $162.20. 

However, if this person were uninsured, they would bear the full brunt of these charges. The uninsured person would pay the entire $811 for labs that actually cost $106. 

Thanks for reading, and have a great day,

- Dr. Paul Thomas with Plum Health DPC