4 ms·
I'll start by saying I agree with the premise of the article - transparency of pricing is not just helpful, it is necessary. However...I can also understand wh
by erikig 7y ago
I'll start by saying I agree with the premise of the article - transparency of pricing is not just helpful, it is necessary.
However...I can also understand why paying by cash should much cheaper Adding another company or companies into the transaction, trying to standardize the various medical procedures, invoicing and managing co-pays, deductibles etc adds a significant amount of overhead.
One would hope that the insurance companies would leverage the volume of transactions and the pools of clients to get price improvements but this is not the case.
- colbyh 7y agoYeah I think the big problem here is related to the scale, not the fact that it's cheaper when you pay in cash. But that insurance would pay $500 (after negotiating the price down) and then push a > $1k charge to the patient when the clinic would have been ok with a $500 payment up front is just wrong. It's also worth noting that many clinics, if not most, won't actually try to collect the balance here. They'll often go through the motions and forgive the balance after some number of attempts to collect.