2. 外语
  3. Considering that industry analysts claim that hospital price calculations are arbitrary, we asked hospitals nationwide a simple

Considering that industry analysts claim that hospital price calculations are arbitrary, we asked hospitals nationwide a simple

admin2015-09-26  78
问题     Considering that industry analysts claim that hospital price calculations are arbitrary, we asked hospitals nationwide a simple question: How do you calculate your sticker prices? Five declined to comment or didn’t provide an answer, leaving Murray Askinazi, senior vice-president and CFO of Lawrence Hospital Center in Bronxville, New York, to offer this explanation; For an outpatient MRI(核磁共振成像), as an example, his hospital calculates its charge based on such factors as the cost of buying or leasing the machinery, the wear and tear on that machine, staff salaries, the climate control and electric bill, cleaning costs, local competitive pricing, and other costs related to the hospital’s overhead, like malpractice insurance.
    Surprisingly, medical services can vary wildly from one hospital to the next. The median charge for acute appendicitis admissions at 289 medical centers and hospitals throughout California, for example, ranged from $1,529 to almost $183,000, an Archives of Internal Medicine study reported in April. Within San Francisco alone, the range between the lowest and highest charge was nearly $172,000.
    But hospital sticker prices matter only to a limited extent because they typically get trumped(胜过)by a higher power: the amounts that insurance companies are willing to pay for those services. The figures are determined by a negotiated contract that dictates the rate at which the companies will reimburse the hospital on the patient’s behalf. In addition, the rates paid by Medicare and Medicaid, Askinazi adds, often fail to cover the hospital’s cost of providing the service in the first place, which means some of those costs are often shifted to commercially insured patients.
    Now, all those factors affect the math for one simple outpatient test. For an inpatient hospital stay, those computations sprout into an intricate vine in which every service(from radiology to pathology)generates its own charges. The hospital also has facility charges, covering room and board, certain room-use fees(such as the operating room), and nursing services, all of which get consolidated into the bill sent to you and your insurance company.
    As technology advances, those charges rise. Palmer had a client from Louisville, Kentucky, who was astonished to receive a charge of $45,330 for a prostate surgery and an overnight stay(insurance would cover only $4,845). The billing department told Palmer that the steep price was not only because it was a robotic procedure but also because patients who receive the high-tech surgery shortly after the hospital starts offering it are helping to recoup(偿还)the facility’s equipment costs.
What is this passage mainly concerned with?
选项 A、The problems in U.S. hospitals and medical centers.
B、Why a hospital bill costs what it costs.
C、How difficult it is for a patient to get medical services.
D、How the medical charges rise as technology advances.
答案B
解析 主旨题。本题考查对文章的整体把握。通过文章第一段提出的问题How do you calculate yoursticker prices?以及Murray Askinazi的解释：his hospital calculates its charge based on such factors as…可知，文章主要谈论的是医院账单如何计算的问题。接下来的几段谈论的是影响医院账单的因素。[B]“为什么医院账单有如此花费”最贴近文章大意，因此为正确答案。[A]“美国医院及医疗中心存在的问题”表述太过宽泛，故排除；[C]“病人看病有多困难”在文中并未提及，故排除；[D]“医疗费用如何随着科技进步而上涨”仅是最后一段的大意，故排除。
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