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Organizational Analysis Paper

Decent Essays

A Bill of Health That Doesn’t Add Up At the request of the Tampa Tribune, three insurers allowed a reporter access to hospital cost and quality information they post on password-protected Web sites for their members. The companies were Humana, United Healthcare, and Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Florida. A Tribune analysis shows the range of prices that Bay area hospitals charge for the same procedures. I believe the statistical procedure used in this report is mentioned in Chapters 2 under Data types. Out of the two Data types mentioned in chapter 2, (Qualitative data and Quantitative data) I think the Quantitative data type would be appropriate in this analysis report, due to the research is being done on prices that Bay area …show more content…

The others were UnitedHealthcare the nation’s second-largest carrier, and Blue Cross and BlueShield of Florida, The largest health insurer in Florida. Both provide rankings of local hospitals by procedure, but neither provides as much cost information as Humana. The Tribune decided to focus on the Humana site.
More Findings
Cost can vary – a lot: Heart catheterization, a procedure to determine whether surgery is needed, cost about $20,000 at Florida Hospital Zephyrhills, almost four times as much as the $5,850 it cost at Tampa General.
Location can matter
In general, hospital costs tend to be lower in Pinellas County than Hillsborough. And costs in both counties tend to be less than in Pasco. For example, a stroke-prevention procedure known as Carotid Endarterectomy cost Humana more than $30,000 at Community Hospital of New Port Richey. Equally good results were reported at University Hospital in Tampa, where the cost was about $5,000.

Meanwhile, cost for procedures at hospitals in east Pasco County are higher than elsewhere in Pasco County are higher than elsewhere in Pasco. For example, the$20,000 Humana said it paid for heart catheterization at Florida Hospital Zephyrhills is two to three times higher than what it paid at other hospitals in Pasco – and far more than in Pinellas and Hillsborough. Price often has no relationship to quality: Usually the highest price for a procedure occurred at a facility that received an average score from WebMD on

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