So I'm taking care of a patient of mine. A patient with a primary orthopaedic injury. I run into the surgeon post op and ask him how things went. He says it was a bad fracture. He flips up a hard film (you never see these anymore) of the post surgical site. Filled with plates and screws. My eyes saw seven or eight screws.
I asked, "Titanium?". "No", he said. "Steel". "How much do each of those screws cost?", I wondered. "About a hundred dollars a screw", he said. And I find myself thinking, while everyone is talking about paying doctors too much or too little, the whole country is getting screwed with $100 screws. There is nothing about a steel screw that makes it worth $100. I find that utterly repulsive.
Oooh, can we talk about spine hardware? $1500 for a screw there.
ReplyDeleteI'm sure you know that things cost that much because of sterility and liability.
ReplyDeleteBut I agree it's absurd
Reminds me of a friend from Med School... he'd carry a screw with him and ask girls...
ReplyDelete"Wanta Screw??"
You would think knowing how to put them in would be considered more valuable than the screw itself...
ReplyDeletescrew 5 cents, sterilization .95 cents, liability covered $25.00, cost of getting it approved by the appropriate federal agencies for use in humans $74.00, putting it in a person and letting them walk.. priceless.
ReplyDelete