George’s $450,000 Heart Attack: Second Opinions on Hospital Bill

David Langness, Hospital Council of Southern California vice president, in his commentary said a patient’s bill at Western Medical Center-Anaheim for seven days of hospitalization amounted to $450,000! The implication was that this sum did not include physicians’ fees.

Having shocked me, and I expect many other readers of this article, I feel that Mr. Langness and the Los Angeles Times owe it to readers of this article to outline/divulge the individual items that added up to this astronomical sum for just seven days of health care services.

Granted, there were lifesaving emergency department services. Could these have exceeded $10,000 for the hours involved? Then there were seven days in an intensive care unit. These average around $1,400 a day in this area, which would round off to $10,000 for seven days.

Would four major operations have exceeded $20,000 each, which would equal $80,000? Would three minor operations have exceeded $10,000 each, which would equal another $30,000? The total of these figures is $130,000. There would also have been lab, pharmacy and other miscellaneous charges, but surely these did not add up to $320,000.

Residents of Orange County deserve an explanation of the costs that they, their insurance companies and (in the case of indigent patients) their governing bodies face for hospitalizations in this county!

CHRIS WRIGHT, Los Alamitos