Price of blood rises

TOLEDO, Ohio- The price of blood that hospitals receive from the American Red Cross is going up.

The Red Cross began telling hospitals on Wednesday that blood prices will jump considerably on July 1. The average price of a unit of red blood cells will go from $122 to $165.30, The Blade reported.

A St. Luke's Hospital administrator in suburban Toledo was preparing for an increase of about 35 percent.

"This is a gigantic jump for us," Thomas Thompson, vice president of professional services for St. Luke's, told the newspaper.

The Red Cross provides about half of the nation's blood supply and is the sole provider of blood for 18 hospitals in northwest Ohio.

Thompson said the price hike comes at a tough time because hospitals are not in a position to recover the costs and insurance companies have been reluctant to increase reimbursement rates.

Red Cross spokesman Chris Thomas said the increase will be nationwide. All hospitals will know about the increase by June 1.

"We understand that this is going to be very painful, but for us to continue to exist we have to do this," said Dr. Peter Lau, executive director of blood services for the Western Lake Erie Region of the Red Cross.

He said federally mandated testing of donated blood for AIDS, hepatitis and other diseases means increasing costs for the Red Cross.

Blood is donated to the Red Cross, but the agency still must test and process it.

Lau said the Red Cross used to do two tests on donated blood and now does a dozen, and that drives up costs.

He said the national Red Cross' blood service has a $1.8 billion budget and is now almost $400 million in debt.

Jackie Fredrick, who oversees national operations for the Red Cross' blood services, said that the Red Cross has been operating at a loss for red blood donations for several years.

Hospitals that use more blood will pay less per unit, although the range of prices isn't that wide, Red Cross officials said.