A bag of salt water
That is the industry in one bag of salt water. Open the receipt. The bag still cost two dollars.
Modeled national rack vs GPO acquisition. Not a named hospital’s bill.
1 of 10. Click the numbers — or next — for another extreme.
Every floor, a price. ED, pharmacy, the OR — shop it like a store.
Then you get sickYou already paid this. Then someone needed a replacement.
$26,993Who the premium is forHalf of everyone’s dollars. Five percent of the room.
$67,321 a yearThe price on the wall. Then what is actually in it: saline, the implant, the labor.
The $2 bag that becomes a $100 line item. Shop the pattern, not just the bag.
$20 cash$28 with a typical commercial contractimagingThe poster child for cash vs ‘negotiated’ imaging.
$565 cash$790 with a typical commercial contractemergencyLevel 3: seen, maybe labs, not admitted. Hard to shop in the moment — still worth knowing.
$565 cash$790 with a typical commercial contractsurgeryTotal knee — implant, OR, a couple of nights, PT in the hospital.
$21,253 cash$29,737 with a typical commercial contractA whole stay as one price, then the parts behind it.
Mom’s delivery + a normal newborn stay. Epidural averaged in.
$11,955 cash$16,727 with a typical commercial contractbirthSurgical birth + a normal newborn stay.
$16,438 cash$23,000 with a typical commercial contractsurgerySame-day scope. A classic cash-shop vs hospital-outpatient fight.
$5,313 cash$7,434 with a typical commercial contractcancerEight infusion days, generic AC-T–like backbone, HER2-negative. Not immunotherapy.
$41,178 cash$57,615 with a typical commercial contractsurgeryUrgent but shoppable if you can choose the hospital before the OR.
$10,959 cash$15,333 with a typical commercial contractsurgerySame story as the knee: implant is thousands, the bill is tens of thousands.
$20,257 cash$28,343 with a typical commercial contractsurgeryCath lab, a drug-eluting stent or two, a night of telemetry.
$24,076 cash$33,686 with a typical commercial contractscreeningScreening / diagnostic. ASCs usually win on cash.
$1,295 cash$1,812 with a typical commercial contractCopy any of this. The plain-language packet is free.