{"id":23702,"date":"2025-02-05T13:55:11","date_gmt":"2025-02-05T20:55:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/health-care-consumers-beware-of-exorbitant-costs\/"},"modified":"2025-02-05T20:55:11","modified_gmt":"2025-02-05T20:55:11","slug":"health-care-consumers-beware-of-exorbitant-costs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/health-care-consumers-beware-of-exorbitant-costs\/","title":{"rendered":"Health care consumers beware of exorbitant costs"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><figure class=\"wp-block-image naviga-inline-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/imengine.public.prod.dur.navigacloud.com\/?uuid=3ba4ce41-a358-5d9b-b360-ebd942a1f4df&#038;function=cover&#038;type=preview&#038;source=false&#038;width=2000\" width=\"1680\" height=\"958\" alt=\"\" class=\"naviga-image\" loading=\"lazy\" \/><figcaption><span class=\"credit\">cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>I experienced a wake-up call this past week when I had an abnormal imaging study. I was referred to CommonSpirit Mercy Hospital Breast Care Center in Durango for a procedure. I was given an appointment and asked how much this procedure was going to cost. I was floored when I was told the cost would be $15,0000 and what I would be responsible for after my medical insurance paid.<\/p>\n<p>This really bothered me, so I Googled what the average cost of this type of procedure would cost and to my surprise it was between $2,500-$3,500, one-fifth the cost of what I was going to be charged. At that point, I began calling other facilities in the Four Corners to see what the cost was for this same procedure.<\/p>\n<p>I learned that San Juan Regional Medical Center in Farmington would charge me $3,000, exactly what Google had said. I immediately canceled my original appointment and had my referral along with the imaging sent to this facility so that I could have the procedure done there.<\/p>\n<p>My advice to anyone being referred for any procedure is to check around for the most cost-effective way to get what you need. Don\u2019t follow the herd. Make smart health care decisions and be your own advocate.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Lucy Gasaway<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><em id=\"emphasis-bd99b7d6637cd2f8b12fd56597b7190d\">Mancos<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I experienced a wake-up call this past week when I had an abnormal imaging study. I was referred to CommonSpirit Mercy Hospital Breast Care Center in Durango for a procedure. I was given an appointment and asked how much this procedure was going to cost. I was floored when I was told the cost [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13329,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[29,125],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-23702","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-newsletter","tag-newsletter-opinion"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23702","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23702"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23702\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13329"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23702"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23702"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23702"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=23702"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}