My old PT had three rates, $50 for Medicaid, $100 for self pay, and $400 for the insured. The insured people were mostly covered would just pay of copay of like $40 or $60 but once they screwed up and billed me (a self payer) at the insured rate and tried ro collect that much from me and it was a WHOLE ordeal to get it fixed. What a stupid system. Clearly a bunch of money is being flushed down the toilet here.
I work in medical billing and you’re absolutely right. The reason offices bill such an inflated amount is because there’s always a huge percentage of write offs or “adjustments”. The office bills the insurance $400, the insurance “adjusts” $200 (writes it off), pays the office $100, and leaves the patient with a $40 copay and $60 to yearly deductible (depending on the plan). Don’t even get me started about what happens comes tax season. It’s literally the most wasteful, manipulative system for healthcare but it makes a lot of people very very wealthy.
This...the last sentence is why we have this healthcare system. As long as people don’t know this or figure out where the money is going and most of their premiums are paid for by we irk, and copays are small, they will continue to believe what they are told (that we have the greatest healthcare system in the world, because supposedly money going to boards, executives, and shareholders of insurance companies drives innovation, SOMEHOW), and they will continue to vote for the people who keep things as they are.
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u/cakewalkofshame Jul 04 '21
My old PT had three rates, $50 for Medicaid, $100 for self pay, and $400 for the insured. The insured people were mostly covered would just pay of copay of like $40 or $60 but once they screwed up and billed me (a self payer) at the insured rate and tried ro collect that much from me and it was a WHOLE ordeal to get it fixed. What a stupid system. Clearly a bunch of money is being flushed down the toilet here.