3 ms·

But why is done that way? Lots of freelance chefs move between restaurants but the bill is always between the restaurant and the people who dine there.

beaeglebeached 3y ago
Server is better analogy. The wage you pay/owe the waiter is direct and (mostly) separate from meal, albeit informal with only shame as a deterrent for default.
- AlecSchueler 3y ago
  I'm not based in the US, so my servers are paid a wage directly by the restaurant.
  - beaeglebeached 3y ago
    That makes sense, but the ah ah ah this isn't the US card comes unexpected on an analogy developed specifically alongside a US based topic.
    - AlecSchueler 3y ago
      I'm sorry? I was only asking a question about another culture.
John23832 3y ago
Because the legalities of chef/restaurant malpractice are orders of magnitude less important than those of doctor/anesthesiologist/hospital.
devilbunny 3y ago
Because historically doctors were in private practices. I still am, as an anesthesiologist. Many of the surgeons I work with are also private. So, since neither of us is employed by the hospital, we do our own billing. If we were hospital employees, we could indeed do unified billing. That's a better analogy; your chefs are expecting to be paid by the restaurant, so it collects the bill. I am not paid by the hospital except a stipend for taking call for them - not for any specific services I provide to patients. It's frustrating for patients and families, it's annoying for us, but it's the price of legal independence for us. If my hospital collapsed overnight (and they sometimes do), my group could go out and start working other sources of income right away, because we already have the business setup to do our own billing.
- petre 3y ago
  It's still better than billing to the hospital and the hospital billing to the patient, piling up taxes and comissions. The patient is also getting more cost transparency instead of a bundled bill one can never make sense of.
  - ddoolin 3y ago
    I don't agree with the last point and I think this thread is evidence of that. We cannot make sense of the myriad of bills we get from all the different providers, particularly since many or all of them are also being dealt with by our insurance and may have already been negotiated by the time we get the bills in the mail. To that point, I went to the ER a few months ago and I've probably received ten or so mailings for unpaid bills, only one of which I actually ended up owing, but my insurance didn't make the claims visible until they were settled which was months after the fact. To make matters worse, I can still log in and pay bills which were settled by my insurance. And I've received bills in the mail -- late I assume -- after they were paid by me or settled by insurance, confounding matters further.
  - Aloisius 3y ago
    Transparency would be far more useful if it came before the service being rendered. Obviously there are some practical limits in exceptional cases, but I can't think of another industry that has high-price services where providing estimates isn't standard.
    - danaris 3y ago
      The problem is that in many cases, there is no way for a patient to meaningfully review options, negotiate, or even consent prior to receiving treatment. For non-elective procedures, at best it's an "under duress" sort of deal. This is why healthcare should be provided for free at the point of service, paid for by the government. It works very, very well for many other countries. The only reason we haven't been able to make it work here is the rampant lobbying.
  - smileysteve 3y ago

beaeglebeached 3y ago

Server is better analogy. The wage you pay/owe the waiter is direct and (mostly) separate from meal, albeit informal with only shame as a deterrent for default.

AlecSchueler 3y ago
I'm not based in the US, so my servers are paid a wage directly by the restaurant.
- beaeglebeached 3y ago
  That makes sense, but the ah ah ah this isn't the US card comes unexpected on an analogy developed specifically alongside a US based topic.
  - AlecSchueler 3y ago
    I'm sorry? I was only asking a question about another culture.

John23832 3y ago

Because the legalities of chef/restaurant malpractice are orders of magnitude less important than those of doctor/anesthesiologist/hospital.

devilbunny 3y ago

Because historically doctors were in private practices. I still am, as an anesthesiologist. Many of the surgeons I work with are also private. So, since neither of us is employed by the hospital, we do our own billing. If we were hospital employees, we could indeed do unified billing. That's a better analogy; your chefs are expecting to be paid by the restaurant, so it collects the bill. I am not paid by the hospital except a stipend for taking call for them - not for any specific services I provide to patients. It's frustrating for patients and families, it's annoying for us, but it's the price of legal independence for us. If my hospital collapsed overnight (and they sometimes do), my group could go out and start working other sources of income right away, because we already have the business setup to do our own billing.

petre 3y ago
It's still better than billing to the hospital and the hospital billing to the patient, piling up taxes and comissions. The patient is also getting more cost transparency instead of a bundled bill one can never make sense of.
- ddoolin 3y ago
  I don't agree with the last point and I think this thread is evidence of that. We cannot make sense of the myriad of bills we get from all the different providers, particularly since many or all of them are also being dealt with by our insurance and may have already been negotiated by the time we get the bills in the mail. To that point, I went to the ER a few months ago and I've probably received ten or so mailings for unpaid bills, only one of which I actually ended up owing, but my insurance didn't make the claims visible until they were settled which was months after the fact. To make matters worse, I can still log in and pay bills which were settled by my insurance. And I've received bills in the mail -- late I assume -- after they were paid by me or settled by insurance, confounding matters further.
- Aloisius 3y ago
  Transparency would be far more useful if it came before the service being rendered. Obviously there are some practical limits in exceptional cases, but I can't think of another industry that has high-price services where providing estimates isn't standard.
  - danaris 3y ago
    The problem is that in many cases, there is no way for a patient to meaningfully review options, negotiate, or even consent prior to receiving treatment. For non-elective procedures, at best it's an "under duress" sort of deal. This is why healthcare should be provided for free at the point of service, paid for by the government. It works very, very well for many other countries. The only reason we haven't been able to make it work here is the rampant lobbying.
- smileysteve 3y ago