Consumer Confidential: Leaked SoCal hospital records reveal huge, automated markups for healthcare
Ridiculous, seemingly arbitrary price markups are a defining characteristic of the $4-trillion U.S. healthcare system — and a key reason Americans pay more for treatment than anyone else in the world.
But to see price hikes of as much as 675% being imposed in real time, automatically, by a hospital's computer system still takes your breath away.
I got to view this for myself after a former operating-room nurse at Scripps Memorial Hospital in Encinitas, California shared with me screenshots of the facility's electronic health record system.
The nurse asked that I not use her name because she's now working at a different Southern California medical facility and worries that her job could be endangered.
Her screenshots, taken earlier this
