2 ms·
It's common to hit similar road blocks when trying to get a primary care physician around here (and the in-network specialists won't see you without a referral
by hedora 2y ago
It's common to hit similar road blocks when trying to get a primary care physician around here (and the in-network specialists won't see you without a referral from a primary care physician, rendering your health insurance worthless for non-emergency care).
The US really needs to get rid of the health insurance industry. Single payer would work as would standardized pricing combined with "if the doctor is licensed the insurance company must accept the bill".
Barring that, there should be SLAs regarding for one-shot online searches or one phone call lookup of in-network care providers.
For example, there could be a guarantee that the top three hits of at least 99% of such attempts each contain the phone number of a doctor's office that is accepting new patients and provides relevant care. If the insurance company falls below that bar, then it should have to refund all the premiums they collected that month (since there's no way to know which customers deferred care due to this bullshit), or be hit with some other fine that'd actually be material to their earnings.
- paulryanrogers 2y agoAfraid single payer system would just be hollowed out by conservatives (funded by PE), as it has been in the UK. Doubtful the US has the buy in and the discipline to maintain such a system. Sadly our private insurance market is an oligopoly that can obscure pricing and collude to increase prices. So it's the worst of both worlds.
- LorenPechtel 2y agoWe have three UHC systems in America. Medicare, Medicaid and Tricare. All are typically worse than the private system. You want people to support UHC, fix the system first! What I would like to see is a SLA requirement that you can submit a request for a doctor who does X and is taking new patients. If you go through that list without finding one that can actually take you in a reasonable period they have 24 hours to remedy the matter or they have to cover at in network rates any doctor you select--and that remains in effect so long as you see that doctor (they can't force you to switch doctors.) Say $100/day + costs if they fail. They don't need more than a very short period because it shouldn't happen very often in the first place.