Facility fees — often a surprise charge — are adding to cost of doctor visits, according to an article on The New York Times website.
The purpose of the facility fee is to compensate hospitals for the expense of maintaining the facility.
Hospital-owned, off-campus medical practices can also charge the fee to cover regulatory requirements, such as building codes, disaster preparedness and equipment redundancy.
How much a patient may have to pay depends on the complexity of the visit. For new patients, facility fees typically range from $131 to $322 per visit; for established patients, they are slightly lower. In surgical centers and free-standing emergency rooms, the facility fee can be thousands of dollars, the article said.
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