About 10 years ago, I was a freelance consultant for clinics, hospitals and insurance companies (EMR, billing, claims, practice management, etc.). I've also bee

About 10 years ago, I was a freelance consultant for clinics, hospitals and insurance companies (EMR, billing, claims, practice management, etc.). I've also been a volunteer EMT for about 20 years and have many friends who are clinicians. The amount of administrative overhead is just absurd: a common and believable number is about 15%. This does NOT include the "shadow labor" that everyday people have to deal with, like being on hold with a billing department or insurance company, the merry-go-round of "prior authorization hell" for procedures or prescriptions, etc. It's TERRIBLE that someone like me--conversant in business practices, ICD/CPT codes, and clinical practice in general--struggles to interpret a bill. It's literally worse than buying a car. I can make lots of choices in life, but one of them isn't health care: if I need it--especially urgently--I'm not in a position to game out every scenario possible to minimize costs because the ecosystem is non-transparent and labyrinthine.