Regarding price negotiation, my wife and I have asked multiple doctors, nurses, and billing departments to tell us how much a given service we have received wil

Regarding price negotiation, my wife and I have asked multiple doctors, nurses, and billing departments to tell us how much a given service we have received will cost. Both before the service and after the service. We've even called the insurance company with the billing codes from the doctor's office to get quotes. NO HUMANS CAN TELL US HOW MUCH ANYTHING COSTS! We are continually told that we have to wait for the insurance company to come back with the pricing after the service has been rendered. This is the most infuriating part of it, there is no way for us to understand the costs of services which are recommended to us by our doctors. We are not able to shop around or to understand if we could/should delay any particular service because of cost/benefit ratio because we do not know the cost of anything ahead of time. At least our preferred local pharmacy will usually call us prior to filling any expensive prescriptions to make sure that we understand the cost. I assume the pharmacy has enough people balk at the cost after they've already filled the prescription and then they have a bunch of headache dealing with putting the pills back so they've gotten proactive about it.