Your ignorance will cost you

Are you paying your trusted hospital more than you should? Do you know if your trusted hospital is charging you the right price or scaring you into spending more than you should?

In an era where lawyers and doctors advise us to get a “second opinion,” it is disturbing to know that many people will ask a “second opinion” about findings and surgeries, but don’t really do the same thing about treatment options and prices. Many of us simply “trust” that a doctor is doing the right thing and has our well being in mind. Yes, they probably do, but there are a number of them who are also in the business of providing services, promoting and selling medicines, with nary a thought or worry about how the costs can hurt you and your finances.

At the end of the day, many people end up paying 2 to 3 times more than what they ought to out of fear and undeserved trust on an inconsiderate or wet behind the ears physician working for a profit oriented hospital. Ultimately, it becomes the patient or patient’s family’s responsibility to double check on prices and treatment options. The minute more people do this, they will immediately realize how they have thrown away thousands if not hundreds of thousands of pesos by not comparing prices between private hospitals and not considering government run hospitals and the great people that work in them.

After reading my articles on government hospitals a couple of people started sharing their observations and experience between private versus government hospitals. Just so you know, these people are nowhere near being poor or underprivileged people. They are middle class to upper class Pinoys and Tsinoys who earn enough and prioritize their health. I’d like to feature two stories for today.

A Tsinoy couple recently shared their accidental discovery on the price difference for preventive treatment of rabies between private hospitals and the leading government hospital, when the wife needed preventive treatment for rabies, and when a driver needed the same 2 months later.

When the Tsinay lady was accidentally bitten by one of her pet cats last April, she thought it best to go to a Pasig hospital to get shots as a precaution. After the mandatory skin test, she was determined to be allergic to the cheaper serum Equirab that is derived from horses; she was required to get the Berirab serum that was more expensive. That episode cost her P46,000.

Two months later, her tiny toy dog bit a company driver making a delivery to her house. Although the dog regularly gets anti rabies vaccine, they chose to bring the driver to a Quezon City hospital, which is listed as the accredited provider of the driver’s HMO. Having acquired some first hand information about treatment options, the Tsinay lady requested that the driver be tested if he was allergic to the Equine derived serum. The attending physician said that it was “phased out” while a nurse later corrected the statement by saying it was out of stock. The Tsinay lady then inquired how much the treatment option using the human based serum would cost and she was reportedly quoted P65,000.

Shocked by the price difference between what she paid at the Pasig hospital and what she would have to pay at the QC hospital, the Tsinay lady and the driver agreed to go to the San Lazaro Hospital. The following is an account of their trip to San Lazaro:

“Our experience at San Lazaro…

I didn’t expect San Lazaro to be a clean, efficient and well-run hospital. Because of so many horror stories I heard before when we were young, I did not trust public hospitals. But on the contrary, not only was it affordable, but one will be properly treated. The attending physician told us at peak they treat about 500 to 1,000 cases of animal bites DAILY, mostly cat and dog bites. On low season about 300 cases. I assume these would be school days when children are in school and out of the streets.

Upon arrival at San Lazaro, it took us 5 minutes to find parking inside the center. The attending nurse told us to pay P50 for the ER (Emergency Room fee) and were given a number (sort of ID) which will serve as a permanent ID record for the hospital. When we needed to be tested for serum compatibility (to choose between human or horse serum), all we had to do was to buy a skin test kit worth P10 at the pharmacy across the hospital. The nurse took care of the testing. We ended up paying a total of P3,765 for the rabies treatment at San Lazaro. But we availed of the tetanus shots in the QC hospital since the HMO of the driver covered it.

The experience led us to believe in government hospitals and reminded us to ask around first. Private hospitals are supply and demand as well as profit driven so we should be wary about the perils of over charging.”

Based on their experience, the Tsinay lady strongly advises would-be patients to make sure to do the skin test because the horse based serum is only 30% the price of the human based serum. The skin test will also save you from an adverse reaction in case you are allergic to the cheaper serum and that’s only Ph10. Here are the comparative prices as quoted by the hospitals:

Berirab (human)              

QC area hospital:              P11,672/vial

Pasig area hospital:         P7,695/vial

San Lazaro:                         P4,125/vial

Equirab (horse)

QC area hospital:              “phase-out” daw, but really just         out of stock

Pasig area hospital:         P1,776/vial

San Lazaro:                         P1,235/vial

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When my friend Dan read about my stress test, angiogram and angioplasty at the Philippine Heart Center and how affordable it was, he immediately asked how much I paid for the hospital bills alone and was shocked to learn that I paid only 30% of what he had to pay for the same procedure at a well-known private hospital. In hindsight he said, he should have considered going to a government hospital considering he is a government official at that.

The sad part of it all was that he had to spend much of what would have been his savings for retirement a lot of which went into the annual profits of the already profitable private hospital.

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We only have ourselves to blame when we blindly entrust our lives, our wealth and our choices to strangers. Our lives will always be in God’s hands. But our wealth and our choices, those are in our hands.

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