I would change that doctors, hospitals, and diagnostic centers MUST know fees at the time a patient is getting a procure done and none of this bullshit where the doctor tells you to call your insurance to find out and then the insurance tells you to ask the doctor. The way to take care of that is not letting charges be HUGELY different depending on whether it is medicare, self pay, or insurance. Especially not having these completely fake charges billed to insurance and quoted to patients like that is the real amount. Don’t quote $2,000 when in the end it will be knowcked down to $600..
Just recently my husband needed an mri and it was more for us to go through insurance than self-pay,and actually they “wrongly” quoted me the medicare price, which was around HALF of self-pay or insurance, and young woman at the desk when we got there said we have to pay the higher price. I said so because of my age or my insurance or lack there of, I get charged a higher price, plus your billing department quoted me the lower price and that is why I am here and not somewhere else. She was in the mode of tough luck. Right in front of her I called billing again and they quoted me the lower price again! I didn’t even mention that initially the staff told my husband he has to go through insurance or it is fraud. TOTAL LIE. They wound up giving us the lower price, but of course now it has to be uncomfortable for us at that diagnostic center.
For sure the insurance industry does not give a shit about the mental stress they cause.
My colonscopy was $2,500 with insurance that I would actually have to pay (something close to that) or $750 self-pay. That is so disgusting to me for two reasons. One, is obvious from what I wrote here, the other is that my colonscopies are preventative, not routine, I have had polyps since my 30’s and a very high risk of colon cancer. My colonoscopies probably save the insurance company a fortune by preventing me from getting cancer, and yet they are discouraging me from getting it done by not covering it.
Actually, I want to change the whole system to a more socialized system, but if we have to live with what we basically have now, we have to do something to stop the gouging and to stop the drastic fee difference and “secret” billing.