I recently had to drop off some MRI results for my Ortho doctor here at a hospital in San Diego. I won’t name the name of the hospital, but it rhymes with Scripts. You have to pay them to park in their parking structure just to go in and visit your doctor. This seems like it just might be the cost of doing business, but why is that the case? I don’t have to pay to park while spending my money at Target or Best Buy, so why do I have to pay to park to receive healthcare from a hospital? There isn’t even transparency in how much you can expect to pay when parking in their parking structure, you only find out after you have entered the gated parking structure and parked your car. The parking fees aren't the real issue, it's the corporate greed and utter lack of transparency that has infiltrated our healthcare systems in the United States.
Healthcare is a basic human need, and many would argue, myself included, a basic human right. So, why do we tolerate systems that force parking fees on us to visit our doctors when we don’t have to pay to visit any of these other facilities? I think some of it is a lack of transparency and the lack of choice. Most people don’t shop for doctors or healthcare services thinking about how much parking is going to cost. Once you get into see a doctor and you establish care with them, it becomes a huge hassle to go somewhere new. If you showed up to Target and saw that they had instituted a parking fee, you’d probably just keep driving to the store down the road; a solution not so easy with healthcare. Often times, patients are on healthcare plans that do not afford much flexibility in changing their healthcare provider or their hospital system. After co-pays and other indecipherable fees, a few bucks for parking doesn't feel like a huge deal, but it is a symptom of the larger problem. The healthcare system in our country is inherently and intentionally opaque and inflexible when it comes to providing patients the power to choose. The lack of transparency and flexibility are problems, but the real Big Bad Evil Guy in this story is toxic capitalism getting it's creepy, nasty hands all over our sweet, sweet healthcare.
This facility that charges me for parking to see my doctor also had the audacity to send me an email asking me to donate more money to them this past month. They claimed it was to further research in their institution; research that is often subsidized, or even fully funded by our tax dollars. I don’t think this is unique to the "Not-for-Profit" hospital system here that rhymes with Scripts. I’ve seen it in hospitals on the East Coast and in the Midwest; corporate greed, slowly infusing itself into our healthcare system. However, I do find the greed and the funneling of money to the top of the food-chain in this healthcare system particularly egregious. The CEO of the Medical System that rhymes with Scripts received over $16 million dollars in compensation over a three year period. After an investigation by a local news outlet, it was argued that this compensation was on par with what other healthcare systems are paying their executives; they didn't argue that it was right, just that everyone else was doing it too, so (shrugging emoji). There are dozens of other over-paid executives earning millions every year within this organization. For some reason, they need me to pay $12 to park to see my doctor.
The University I recently attended (I won’t say their name here, but it rhymes with University of Birginia) was in the news a few years back for having a massive legal and accounting department that utilized predatory practices go after patients, sometimes putting liens on the homes of patients and family members that could never realistically afford to pay off exorbitant medical bills. The University and their Healthcare System went into damage control to try to explain and adapt their policies to make them seem a little bit less like monsters. They announced that they revised and stopped some of these practices, not because they knew that it was morally and ethically wrong, but because we found out about it. I suspect these departments and their predatory behavior still exist though. This University, and actually all universities that I have attended frequently send me emails asking me to subsidize the education of current and future students, or worse, to upgrade their athletic facilities. Come to think of it, they also made me pay to park in their parking lots too. Maybe they could subsidize the education of current and future students by not charging them parking fees. The CEO for this University Medical System made $1.6 million dollars in 2024 according to Google's AI search results. I suspect that he paid exactly zero dollars in parking fees. According to Google AI, an Emergency Room nurse at this University Medical Center earns about $33 per hour, 33% below the National average.
As someone recently at the front lines of healthcare, most of these practices go against my own ethical values, as well as the Codes of Ethics for many professional medical communities. I'm not quite sure what the fix for this is, but I'm certain that a piece of this solution includes patients and medical professionals being more vocal about these unethical practices and holding their own healthcare executives accountable.
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