June 25, 2026 • 18 mins
President & CEO Sanford Bismarck, Todd Schaffer, MD on Price Transparency.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome back to Dakota Mornings. I am your host, Michael
Bell kfy R five fifty AM, man A nine point
seven FM, and we are joined on the phone by
doctor Todd Schaeffer, President and CEO Sandford Bismarck. Doctor Schaeffer,
thank you so much for joining us this morning.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Absolutely, it's my pleasure. I appreciate you have me on
the show this morning.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
Yeah. I always like it when you come on because
you're always dropping knowledge on us, which is deeply appreciated.
And the focus of this segment is going to be
something that has been on my mind for quite a
bit lately, and I appreciate it. Sandford Bismarck has a
program to examining greater detail price transparency and delivering on
(00:43):
price transparency for patients across the spectrum.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
Absolutely, you know, it's a very important topic. You know,
if you'll get concerns on people's minds, it's you know,
cost of health care. You know, whether it's an employer
and paying premiums for their employee for health plans. You know,
if you look at you know, consumers of health care,
you look at you know, I've got to go do
this based on my benefit plan what is this going
to cost me? We don't want, you know, as a
(01:10):
health care provider, we really don't want any surprises. We
want to make sure that we empower patients with information
so they that they can make confident decisions about their
care without any big surprises of what that's going to
cost them. So it's it is something that's on people's minds,
and I think something that not only at Sanford it,
but you know, almost every health care facility has a
(01:32):
program similar to this, And I think that's the point
to be made right up front, is every facility is
required by the federal government to have a program similar
to this, uh and I think there's a lot of
work that goes into it to make it consumer friendly
so that way people can go in and put the
information in that they need to then they can get
a really good idea what a precedure is going to
(01:55):
cost them.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
One of the things that I want to highlight about
this is that this is health being make people consumers
of their own healthcare and their own health care decisions.
Any big purchase is is examined on the bottom line
is examined, but also patients go through in much greater
detail the program at Sandford. You provide really effective tools exactly.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
And if you look at it as an example, you
do a big purchase. You want and buy a car,
So I'll say you're gonna you want to get a
car somewhere in the fifty to seventy thousand dollars range
as an example, or maybe say you know what, maybe
it's a thirty thousand dollars car, but I'm going to
make an informed decision about what I can afford and
without any surprises. You know, wh if you look at healthcare,
it's so different. If you go in and say I'm
(02:42):
going to have, you know, a procedure, it's going to
cost me X number of dollars as well. You know,
the thing about buying a car is there's not an
insurance company that is in play with that. There's a
lot of complexity to how healthcare costs come into play.
So you got what with the hospital will charge for
a procedure, uh, the insurance contract and then the benefits design.
(03:07):
So when you when you buy health insurance, you're gonna
have a variety of plans. You know, do you have
a high deductible plan, do you have a low deductible plan?
What is your co payment, what's your deductible? Uh, you know,
what's your co insurance? All these different things go into
those decisions. And obviously the higher deductible, the more you
know co payment you have, the cheaper your monthly premious
(03:29):
is going to be. But from a you know, as
we work with patients and we charge the insurance company
for these procedures, you know, everybody is different with that,
and there's literally hundreds of plans out there with literally
dozens of choices for each plan. So what we try
to do is we try to translate that into a simple,
patient friendly estimate. So if you go into our website
(03:53):
and I can describe in more detail and a little
bit about how to get there, it will basically you'll
go in there and you'll put onsurance, what procedure you're
looking at having done, what insurance company you have, and
then what plan you have, and that will then be
able to drill down into those benefits a lot closer
to get a better estimate of what those prices are
(04:14):
going to be for you. Because again, straightforward, you go
buy a car, there's not insurance, deductibles and co payments
in there. You know, if you're going to buy a
forty thousand dollars car, it's going to cost you forty
thousand dollars. But if you buy it and you have
insurance and it's going to cost you two thousand dollars
after all the you know your insurance pays for it,
that's a different story. It could be two thousand, it
could be ten thousand. What is that cash that has
(04:36):
to come out of your pocket in order to pay
for that? In our case, there's insurance companies with contractual
obligations from the insurance company in the hospital that are
now having conversations to on behalf of the patient. So
there's a layer of complexity that adds to it, and
it's not always clear to our patients. So we want
to make sure that they have an idea of what
(04:57):
that looks like.
Speaker 1 (04:59):
The Act says, the accessibility of this is not just
you know, verbal from from your healthcare provider to a
patient while they're sitting, you know, in in the hospital
or in a in a doctor's office. This is something
that is that is highly portable through, for example, my chart.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
Absolutely, so there's a variety of ways that that you
can access it. There is a there is an app
you know, through my Stanford Chart, you can go in
and you can achieve that information, you know, putting your
information in and achieve what that will look like. You
can call. So if that's not confusing or you're not
quite getting to what you need, you can also call.
(05:40):
But then we have on our website as well, we
have a Sanford health dot org that will you can
go to right to the bottom of the page and
you can go in and you can click that. So
we want to make it available to a variety of
people so they go. If somebody says, well, I don't
have my Stanford chart, I don't have the app, you
could call or you could go to the website. So
we try to have a variety of ways available to patients.
Speaker 1 (06:03):
And and when you're empowering people to be more as
you characterize the consumers of their own healthcare. When you're
empowering people, there is a much a greater u remediation
of these issues which people are visiting you about.
Speaker 2 (06:18):
Absolutely, you know, because again we don't we really strive
to not have any surprises, you know, when patients have
a procedure done, we want them to be able to say,
you know, you know, within a few dollars, this is
what it's gonna it's gonna cost me. And and then
that puts you in charge of your healthcare to say,
you know, if it's an elective procedure, this is what
(06:39):
it's going to cost me, And now I can make
this informed decision of whether to proceed or not. And
I think the point you made earlier, you know, you've
got you know, providers that are visiting with a patient.
We want to make this available to patients outside of
the provider's office, a doctor and app because really we
want the patients and the doctors to be talking about procedure,
(07:01):
the risks of it, the benefits of it, and concentrate
on getting healthy versus what it's going to cost. You know.
From this standpoint, this now gives the patient the opportunity
outside of the doctor's office when they're you know, focusing
on the issue at hand, allows them to on their
you know, outside of there, to be able to go
in and figure out what that that cost is going
(07:21):
to be and then they can plan for it. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:24):
One of the things that I also like about that
outside of you know, the the the the doctor's office,
for example, is that you know, you can then have
a discussion with your family, with your close friends and
and have and and get more input. The doctor's input
is the most important, but having input from a wide
(07:44):
range of people is is always beneficial.
Speaker 2 (07:48):
Absolutely. Uh yeah. The more the more information you have
in a decision, the better decision you're going to make.
And you have more input from a wider variety of sources,
it just adds to that data that you have that
allows you to make that decision. So, you know, what
we're trying to do is arm not just the medical
indications for the procedure, but now here's the financial piece
(08:10):
of it, and that can help you make a better decision.
Obviously for more urgent by threatening things, you're going to
do things on the recommendation of your of your physician
that you got to take care of. But you know,
financial decisions and kind of go down a little bit.
But in those elective, more routine things, you can now
make a better decision in regards.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
To those, how does somebody access how do they how
do they get a hold of you in this regard?
How do they take a look at their procedures? What
is there a you know, the portal the website for
the portal or the phone number. You know, any of
those things are greatly benefited.
Speaker 2 (08:46):
So what I would say is the best way to
start the process is to go to the website. So
it's again Stamford Health dot org. And if you just
scroll down to the bottom, you'll it'll say right on
the screen, very bottom and it says price Transparency Center,
right down to the bottom, and you click that and
(09:07):
that will get the process started. And then if not
on the website, you'll see on the left hand side
at the bottom as well, it's just contact us, and
then you can you can put in there, you know,
patient assistance, you'll look at you know, the financial costs.
You could call the number and just say, you know,
(09:29):
I would like to know the cost of an upcoming procedure,
and then they'll connect you to the appropriate people to
provide that estimate. With that, you can give you know,
your here's your name, your number, your insurance information. They
can pull it up right in your or you can
look that up in the system and then they can
look at that and say, based on your benefit and
your plan, uh, this is what the estimate is to
(09:52):
cost you. So I would say the best way to
do it is to go to the website. Start there.
If you have the app my Stanford chart, go into there.
There is a price estimator tool that's located in there
as well, So I think that's where I would start.
Always great to start with that.
Speaker 1 (10:08):
With that website, I want to highlight first thing, how
much work has gone into setting up this program. I
know you're required by the federal government to do it,
but this is a lot of work and a lot
of very time consuming work that has gone into standing
up this program.
Speaker 2 (10:26):
There is a lot of work that goes into it,
and it's and that's the thing about it. The more
work we do, the more effective it is, and the
more there's a lot of thought that goes into it.
We want a product that is going to be user friendly.
The requirement from the federal government we have is a
what we post on our website is a Excel document
(10:49):
with over a million lines of you know that's in it.
So that's not user friendly whatsoever, but that's what we
require to present for the federal government. We wanted something
that the patients can now look at easily enter their
information and you know, pick their procedure, enter the information
and give you a number of what that's going to
look like. I think as well. I'm always you know,
(11:10):
I'm really emphasizing this is what it looks like for
insurance patients. But if you don't have insurance, if you're
a cash paying customer, you don't have insurance, you can
also put that in there. You know, we'll say this
is what it will cost you to have this done
or this done as well, So it's not just limited
to insurance. It'll give you, you know, pretty much in
every situation of your life. It will show what those
(11:31):
those charges will be.
Speaker 1 (11:33):
I also want to highlight that I'm sure that from
an hospital administration perspective, this is a way to take
a deeper examination and control costs for patients.
Speaker 2 (11:47):
It absolutely is. You know, when we look at you know,
healthcare reimbursement, you know, from an administrative standpoint, you know,
we don't set prices right were priced recipient. We you know,
we negotiate with insurance companies based on you know, a
wide variety of factors of what those charges are going
(12:10):
to be. So you know, we might charge fifteen dollars
for a procedure, but the insurance company will pay us
five dollars, and then you know the patient we're responsible
for two dollars as an example, So there's a price
reduction based on negotiated rates of what we charge. So
that I think that's something that is hard to understand
(12:31):
for a lot of people in healthcare because again I'm
sorry healthcare finance because it's very, very complex. It's the
analogy I use a lot. You know, if you're ow
at a restaurant and you charge ten dollars for a hamburger,
the price of hamburger goes up two dollars, you could
always increase your price to twelve dollars to recoup that cost.
(12:51):
In healthcare, is supplies and employee salaries go up. We're
set at a price negotiated by the insurance companies and
then cases of federal payers Medicare, Medicaid, those prices are
set by the government and where price for separated the recipients.
So with that, whatever that you price is, that that
(13:14):
refers to us. Those are the prices that we get
for that we don't step those. I appreciate that very
very important to make that distinction.
Speaker 1 (13:22):
That's a really important point you just made. I'd like
to export a little bit deeper. When we get back
from this commercial break. This is dacode Morning Xime, your
host Michael Bell. Welcome back to Dakota of Morning Zime,
your host Michael Bell. I am joined on the phone
by doctor Todd Schaeffer, President and CEO Samford Bismarck. We're
talking about program at Samford Bismarck on price transparency and
(13:43):
doctor Shaffer. Before we went to commercial break, we were
talking about the benefits of this and I think that
you know, the the intention of the intentionality I should
say of this program helps people plan properly, make informed decisions,
and most importantly in my opinion of what do you need, surprises.
Speaker 2 (14:03):
Absolutely, and I really think that that's the purpose behind
it when you look at you know, the program itself.
It is something that healthcare providers across the state have
really committed to. In fact, we are in the process
through the North Kota Hospital Association, compiling a list of
every critical access hospital and PBS hospital, so basically the
(14:27):
big hospitals and the main four cities and the smaller
hospital sprinkled around the state of compiling a list of
where you can find that information for any hospital throughout
the state of North Dakota. That we're looking at either
at the Department of Health and Human Service or the
Insurance Commissioner's website to host that. So if you, like
I don't know where to look for this information, it
(14:48):
will all be at your fingertips with a very similar
program across every hospital health system in the state of
North Dakota.
Speaker 1 (14:55):
Great, how do I help How do I help out
with that?
Speaker 2 (14:58):
Well? With that as we were just in the final
stages of through the North scot To Hospital Association of
compiling that data and working through either the Insurance Commissioner
or the Commissioner of the Department Health and Human Services
to find out exactly where we want to list that
and once we do, you know, that'll be something that
will be available to consumers and there's going to be
(15:21):
a plan to how do we market that to get
to make people aware that that exists out there.
Speaker 1 (15:27):
I think that this is and this answers the question
I was going to ask when we came back, which
is what's next? This is you know you're looking, you're
looking far over the horizon into how to better enable
your patients to make more informed decisions.
Speaker 2 (15:43):
And I think the biggest thing that we work on,
and it's not just the prime price transparency tools. It's
a lot of things we do in healthcare. Is making
sure that we communicate this effectively to our to our patients.
So though if you're out there, whether it's an after
is it summary and you know what did the physician
instruct you to do? Making sure that you're you're fully
(16:06):
aware of it and and fully understand it. I think
that's the two key components. One is there, but how
do you how do you what do you do what
you're supposed to do? And how do you understand that?
So you know, the price transparency tool, we continuously update
it because again we add insurance companies. You know, some
insurance companies decide not to you know, participate in North Dakota.
(16:27):
So it's keeping that information as current as possible with
those updated benefits. As you know, patients move through the
healthcare system and the health insurance system. To ensure that
you know, they have the insurance, it might change your year.
So how do we make sure the data we have
in there is as accurate and up to date as possible.
So it's just continually educating our patients about kind of
(16:49):
owning their healthcare and being a vehicle for them to
be able to execute their choices in the health care
spectrum and.
Speaker 1 (16:56):
This and this occupies itself. You know, you talked about
whether this next project is going to be hosted at
the Department of Insurance or the Department of Health and
Human Services here in North Dakota. I think that this
is an incredible highlight to you guys already thinking beyond
the horizon, but more importantly consumer focused.
Speaker 2 (17:20):
And I think that's the most important thing at the
end of the day. When you put a patient or
a consumer of healthcare at the center of every decision
you make, it makes those decisions a lot easier and
it makes it make a lot more sense. So this
is something that is very important for patients to have
access to to understand what their costs are for the
(17:42):
healthcare that they're receiving and making sure that they have
understand it and have access to it. So again, very
easy for us to make that decisions human task in
this technology to make sure that the patients have accessibility
to it.
Speaker 1 (17:56):
Doctor Chad Shafer, President and CEO Sandford Bismarck, thank you
so much for joining us this morning.
Speaker 2 (18:01):
Well, thank you for having me. It's always great to
visit with you.
Speaker 1 (18:04):
This is Dakota MO Mornings. I am your host, Michael Bell,
and we are a rap four today
Welcome back to Dakota Mornings. I am your host, Michael
Bell kfy R five fifty AM, man A nine point
seven FM, and we are joined on the phone by
doctor Todd Schaeffer, President and CEO Sandford Bismarck. Doctor Schaeffer,
thank you so much for joining us this morning.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Absolutely, it's my pleasure. I appreciate you have me on
the show this morning.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
Yeah. I always like it when you come on because
you're always dropping knowledge on us, which is deeply appreciated.
And the focus of this segment is going to be
something that has been on my mind for quite a
bit lately, and I appreciate it. Sandford Bismarck has a
program to examining greater detail price transparency and delivering on
(00:43):
price transparency for patients across the spectrum.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
Absolutely, you know, it's a very important topic. You know,
if you'll get concerns on people's minds, it's you know,
cost of health care. You know, whether it's an employer
and paying premiums for their employee for health plans. You know,
if you look at you know, consumers of health care,
you look at you know, I've got to go do
this based on my benefit plan what is this going
to cost me? We don't want, you know, as a
(01:10):
health care provider, we really don't want any surprises. We
want to make sure that we empower patients with information
so they that they can make confident decisions about their
care without any big surprises of what that's going to
cost them. So it's it is something that's on people's minds,
and I think something that not only at Sanford it,
but you know, almost every health care facility has a
(01:32):
program similar to this, And I think that's the point
to be made right up front, is every facility is
required by the federal government to have a program similar
to this, uh and I think there's a lot of
work that goes into it to make it consumer friendly
so that way people can go in and put the
information in that they need to then they can get
a really good idea what a precedure is going to
(01:55):
cost them.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
One of the things that I want to highlight about
this is that this is health being make people consumers
of their own healthcare and their own health care decisions.
Any big purchase is is examined on the bottom line
is examined, but also patients go through in much greater
detail the program at Sandford. You provide really effective tools exactly.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
And if you look at it as an example, you
do a big purchase. You want and buy a car,
So I'll say you're gonna you want to get a
car somewhere in the fifty to seventy thousand dollars range
as an example, or maybe say you know what, maybe
it's a thirty thousand dollars car, but I'm going to
make an informed decision about what I can afford and
without any surprises. You know, wh if you look at healthcare,
it's so different. If you go in and say I'm
(02:42):
going to have, you know, a procedure, it's going to
cost me X number of dollars as well. You know,
the thing about buying a car is there's not an
insurance company that is in play with that. There's a
lot of complexity to how healthcare costs come into play.
So you got what with the hospital will charge for
a procedure, uh, the insurance contract and then the benefits design.
(03:07):
So when you when you buy health insurance, you're gonna
have a variety of plans. You know, do you have
a high deductible plan, do you have a low deductible plan?
What is your co payment, what's your deductible? Uh, you know,
what's your co insurance? All these different things go into
those decisions. And obviously the higher deductible, the more you
know co payment you have, the cheaper your monthly premious
(03:29):
is going to be. But from a you know, as
we work with patients and we charge the insurance company
for these procedures, you know, everybody is different with that,
and there's literally hundreds of plans out there with literally
dozens of choices for each plan. So what we try
to do is we try to translate that into a simple,
patient friendly estimate. So if you go into our website
(03:53):
and I can describe in more detail and a little
bit about how to get there, it will basically you'll
go in there and you'll put onsurance, what procedure you're
looking at having done, what insurance company you have, and
then what plan you have, and that will then be
able to drill down into those benefits a lot closer
to get a better estimate of what those prices are
(04:14):
going to be for you. Because again, straightforward, you go
buy a car, there's not insurance, deductibles and co payments
in there. You know, if you're going to buy a
forty thousand dollars car, it's going to cost you forty
thousand dollars. But if you buy it and you have
insurance and it's going to cost you two thousand dollars
after all the you know your insurance pays for it,
that's a different story. It could be two thousand, it
could be ten thousand. What is that cash that has
(04:36):
to come out of your pocket in order to pay
for that? In our case, there's insurance companies with contractual
obligations from the insurance company in the hospital that are
now having conversations to on behalf of the patient. So
there's a layer of complexity that adds to it, and
it's not always clear to our patients. So we want
to make sure that they have an idea of what
(04:57):
that looks like.
Speaker 1 (04:59):
The Act says, the accessibility of this is not just
you know, verbal from from your healthcare provider to a
patient while they're sitting, you know, in in the hospital
or in a in a doctor's office. This is something
that is that is highly portable through, for example, my chart.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
Absolutely, so there's a variety of ways that that you
can access it. There is a there is an app
you know, through my Stanford Chart, you can go in
and you can achieve that information, you know, putting your
information in and achieve what that will look like. You
can call. So if that's not confusing or you're not
quite getting to what you need, you can also call.
(05:40):
But then we have on our website as well, we
have a Sanford health dot org that will you can
go to right to the bottom of the page and
you can go in and you can click that. So
we want to make it available to a variety of
people so they go. If somebody says, well, I don't
have my Stanford chart, I don't have the app, you
could call or you could go to the website. So
we try to have a variety of ways available to patients.
Speaker 1 (06:03):
And and when you're empowering people to be more as
you characterize the consumers of their own healthcare. When you're
empowering people, there is a much a greater u remediation
of these issues which people are visiting you about.
Speaker 2 (06:18):
Absolutely, you know, because again we don't we really strive
to not have any surprises, you know, when patients have
a procedure done, we want them to be able to say,
you know, you know, within a few dollars, this is
what it's gonna it's gonna cost me. And and then
that puts you in charge of your healthcare to say,
you know, if it's an elective procedure, this is what
(06:39):
it's going to cost me, And now I can make
this informed decision of whether to proceed or not. And
I think the point you made earlier, you know, you've
got you know, providers that are visiting with a patient.
We want to make this available to patients outside of
the provider's office, a doctor and app because really we
want the patients and the doctors to be talking about procedure,
(07:01):
the risks of it, the benefits of it, and concentrate
on getting healthy versus what it's going to cost. You know.
From this standpoint, this now gives the patient the opportunity
outside of the doctor's office when they're you know, focusing
on the issue at hand, allows them to on their
you know, outside of there, to be able to go
in and figure out what that that cost is going
(07:21):
to be and then they can plan for it. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:24):
One of the things that I also like about that
outside of you know, the the the the doctor's office,
for example, is that you know, you can then have
a discussion with your family, with your close friends and
and have and and get more input. The doctor's input
is the most important, but having input from a wide
(07:44):
range of people is is always beneficial.
Speaker 2 (07:48):
Absolutely. Uh yeah. The more the more information you have
in a decision, the better decision you're going to make.
And you have more input from a wider variety of sources,
it just adds to that data that you have that
allows you to make that decision. So, you know, what
we're trying to do is arm not just the medical
indications for the procedure, but now here's the financial piece
(08:10):
of it, and that can help you make a better decision.
Obviously for more urgent by threatening things, you're going to
do things on the recommendation of your of your physician
that you got to take care of. But you know,
financial decisions and kind of go down a little bit.
But in those elective, more routine things, you can now
make a better decision in regards.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
To those, how does somebody access how do they how
do they get a hold of you in this regard?
How do they take a look at their procedures? What
is there a you know, the portal the website for
the portal or the phone number. You know, any of
those things are greatly benefited.
Speaker 2 (08:46):
So what I would say is the best way to
start the process is to go to the website. So
it's again Stamford Health dot org. And if you just
scroll down to the bottom, you'll it'll say right on
the screen, very bottom and it says price Transparency Center,
right down to the bottom, and you click that and
(09:07):
that will get the process started. And then if not
on the website, you'll see on the left hand side
at the bottom as well, it's just contact us, and
then you can you can put in there, you know,
patient assistance, you'll look at you know, the financial costs.
You could call the number and just say, you know,
(09:29):
I would like to know the cost of an upcoming procedure,
and then they'll connect you to the appropriate people to
provide that estimate. With that, you can give you know,
your here's your name, your number, your insurance information. They
can pull it up right in your or you can
look that up in the system and then they can
look at that and say, based on your benefit and
your plan, uh, this is what the estimate is to
(09:52):
cost you. So I would say the best way to
do it is to go to the website. Start there.
If you have the app my Stanford chart, go into there.
There is a price estimator tool that's located in there
as well, So I think that's where I would start.
Always great to start with that.
Speaker 1 (10:08):
With that website, I want to highlight first thing, how
much work has gone into setting up this program. I
know you're required by the federal government to do it,
but this is a lot of work and a lot
of very time consuming work that has gone into standing
up this program.
Speaker 2 (10:26):
There is a lot of work that goes into it,
and it's and that's the thing about it. The more
work we do, the more effective it is, and the
more there's a lot of thought that goes into it.
We want a product that is going to be user friendly.
The requirement from the federal government we have is a
what we post on our website is a Excel document
(10:49):
with over a million lines of you know that's in it.
So that's not user friendly whatsoever, but that's what we
require to present for the federal government. We wanted something
that the patients can now look at easily enter their
information and you know, pick their procedure, enter the information
and give you a number of what that's going to
look like. I think as well. I'm always you know,
(11:10):
I'm really emphasizing this is what it looks like for
insurance patients. But if you don't have insurance, if you're
a cash paying customer, you don't have insurance, you can
also put that in there. You know, we'll say this
is what it will cost you to have this done
or this done as well, So it's not just limited
to insurance. It'll give you, you know, pretty much in
every situation of your life. It will show what those
(11:31):
those charges will be.
Speaker 1 (11:33):
I also want to highlight that I'm sure that from
an hospital administration perspective, this is a way to take
a deeper examination and control costs for patients.
Speaker 2 (11:47):
It absolutely is. You know, when we look at you know,
healthcare reimbursement, you know, from an administrative standpoint, you know,
we don't set prices right were priced recipient. We you know,
we negotiate with insurance companies based on you know, a
wide variety of factors of what those charges are going
(12:10):
to be. So you know, we might charge fifteen dollars
for a procedure, but the insurance company will pay us
five dollars, and then you know the patient we're responsible
for two dollars as an example, So there's a price
reduction based on negotiated rates of what we charge. So
that I think that's something that is hard to understand
(12:31):
for a lot of people in healthcare because again I'm
sorry healthcare finance because it's very, very complex. It's the
analogy I use a lot. You know, if you're ow
at a restaurant and you charge ten dollars for a hamburger,
the price of hamburger goes up two dollars, you could
always increase your price to twelve dollars to recoup that cost.
(12:51):
In healthcare, is supplies and employee salaries go up. We're
set at a price negotiated by the insurance companies and
then cases of federal payers Medicare, Medicaid, those prices are
set by the government and where price for separated the recipients.
So with that, whatever that you price is, that that
(13:14):
refers to us. Those are the prices that we get
for that we don't step those. I appreciate that very
very important to make that distinction.
Speaker 1 (13:22):
That's a really important point you just made. I'd like
to export a little bit deeper. When we get back
from this commercial break. This is dacode Morning Xime, your
host Michael Bell. Welcome back to Dakota of Morning Zime,
your host Michael Bell. I am joined on the phone
by doctor Todd Schaeffer, President and CEO Samford Bismarck. We're
talking about program at Samford Bismarck on price transparency and
(13:43):
doctor Shaffer. Before we went to commercial break, we were
talking about the benefits of this and I think that
you know, the the intention of the intentionality I should
say of this program helps people plan properly, make informed decisions,
and most importantly in my opinion of what do you need, surprises.
Speaker 2 (14:03):
Absolutely, and I really think that that's the purpose behind
it when you look at you know, the program itself.
It is something that healthcare providers across the state have
really committed to. In fact, we are in the process
through the North Kota Hospital Association, compiling a list of
every critical access hospital and PBS hospital, so basically the
(14:27):
big hospitals and the main four cities and the smaller
hospital sprinkled around the state of compiling a list of
where you can find that information for any hospital throughout
the state of North Dakota. That we're looking at either
at the Department of Health and Human Service or the
Insurance Commissioner's website to host that. So if you, like
I don't know where to look for this information, it
(14:48):
will all be at your fingertips with a very similar
program across every hospital health system in the state of
North Dakota.
Speaker 1 (14:55):
Great, how do I help How do I help out
with that?
Speaker 2 (14:58):
Well? With that as we were just in the final
stages of through the North scot To Hospital Association of
compiling that data and working through either the Insurance Commissioner
or the Commissioner of the Department Health and Human Services
to find out exactly where we want to list that
and once we do, you know, that'll be something that
will be available to consumers and there's going to be
(15:21):
a plan to how do we market that to get
to make people aware that that exists out there.
Speaker 1 (15:27):
I think that this is and this answers the question
I was going to ask when we came back, which
is what's next? This is you know you're looking, you're
looking far over the horizon into how to better enable
your patients to make more informed decisions.
Speaker 2 (15:43):
And I think the biggest thing that we work on,
and it's not just the prime price transparency tools. It's
a lot of things we do in healthcare. Is making
sure that we communicate this effectively to our to our patients.
So though if you're out there, whether it's an after
is it summary and you know what did the physician
instruct you to do? Making sure that you're you're fully
(16:06):
aware of it and and fully understand it. I think
that's the two key components. One is there, but how
do you how do you what do you do what
you're supposed to do? And how do you understand that?
So you know, the price transparency tool, we continuously update
it because again we add insurance companies. You know, some
insurance companies decide not to you know, participate in North Dakota.
(16:27):
So it's keeping that information as current as possible with
those updated benefits. As you know, patients move through the
healthcare system and the health insurance system. To ensure that
you know, they have the insurance, it might change your year.
So how do we make sure the data we have
in there is as accurate and up to date as possible.
So it's just continually educating our patients about kind of
(16:49):
owning their healthcare and being a vehicle for them to
be able to execute their choices in the health care
spectrum and.
Speaker 1 (16:56):
This and this occupies itself. You know, you talked about
whether this next project is going to be hosted at
the Department of Insurance or the Department of Health and
Human Services here in North Dakota. I think that this
is an incredible highlight to you guys already thinking beyond
the horizon, but more importantly consumer focused.
Speaker 2 (17:20):
And I think that's the most important thing at the
end of the day. When you put a patient or
a consumer of healthcare at the center of every decision
you make, it makes those decisions a lot easier and
it makes it make a lot more sense. So this
is something that is very important for patients to have
access to to understand what their costs are for the
(17:42):
healthcare that they're receiving and making sure that they have
understand it and have access to it. So again, very
easy for us to make that decisions human task in
this technology to make sure that the patients have accessibility
to it.
Speaker 1 (17:56):
Doctor Chad Shafer, President and CEO Sandford Bismarck, thank you
so much for joining us this morning.
Speaker 2 (18:01):
Well, thank you for having me. It's always great to
visit with you.
Speaker 1 (18:04):
This is Dakota MO Mornings. I am your host, Michael Bell,
and we are a rap four today
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