A walk to the mailbox was hard on Gwinnett County resident David White when he had a hernia. What he didn't have was health insurance.
"The cost for surgery in Atlanta was quoted to me at $14,000," said White.
So he went online and found a quote for around $3,200 from the Surgery Center of Oklahoma in Oklahoma City.
"To save $11,000, flying to Oklahoma was an easy decision," White added.
Since 2006, the Surgery Center of Oklahoma has posted its prices online. For example, an ACL surgery costs $6,790, carpal tunnel surgery costs $2,750, and a tonsillectomy costs $3,050. That is the total cost. There are no added fees.
Anesthesiologist Kevin Smith and his partner left their hospital jobs and opened the center in 1997. They started posting prices online in 2006.
"No other industry hides their prices, and healthcare shouldn't," Smith said. "Most of the prices on our website we found are anywhere from 1/6th to 1/10th of the big-box, so-called, not-for-profit hospitals. And we're making money on every single procedure."
Channel 2 anchor Jovita Moore visited the center at the midst of a boom. Smith told her doctors are performing more than 500 procedures a month, and patients are coming from every state, except Hawaii.
"More and more of the patients we're seeing here are people who have these Obamacare exchange programs and these giant deductibles," Smith said. "They figured out they can actually buy the care cheaper than they can buy the coverage."
The center uses equipment costs, surgeon and anesthesia fees to determine prices.
The Ear, Nose & Throat Institute in metro Atlanta started posting prices online for all of its 15 facilities last year.
"This is a dynamic change. We are going to see over the next several years a major change in healthcare," said ENT Institute founding partner Dr. Jeffrey Gallups.
"The problem with the delivery of healthcare is that it's been out of control forever. Nothing against the hospitals, they're doing what everybody else is doing."
Georgia Hospital Association CEO Earl Rogers admitted hospitals aren't where they need to be with price transparency. He said hospitals are more expensive because of overhead like 24-hour emergency rooms and trauma centers.
Add to that different negotiated prices for services for different insurance companies.
"I think in the next year or so you're going to see a lot better job. But we're not there yet," Rogers said.
In the meantime, he has nothing against surgery centers, but is worried they'll force some hospitals to shut down.
"They serve a niche of consumers, whereas hospitals serve everyone regardless of their ability to pay," Rogers said.
White has insurance now, but said if another health problem popped up, he'd consider going back to Oklahoma.
"I would definitely research the Oklahoma City facility again, see what their prices are, see what surgery I had, because the price difference was ridiculous."
WSBTV
