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Politics : Arnold for Governor! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Original Mad Dog who wrote (557)	10/9/2003 7:48:24 PM
From: Dr. Voodoo	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 773

If the doctor pays your deductible, what is the REAL cost for the service? Visit cost-deductible=real cost.... What did the insurance company get billed???? You can't say you'll work for this much, and then expect the insurance company to pay more than that. That's why it's illegal. The vast majority of patients don't understand what they paid for when the went into the doc's office, and nobody seems interested in spelling it out for them. My doctors office invoices have come to me with nothing but a running tab and a list of office visit dates. No bills for the tests... nothing. No explaination of what the insurance has covered and how much. That is atrocious. If the insurance companies would make the doctors itemize their costs, and set some resonable limits that doctors and patients would abide and understand the problem would go away, provided the patient actually understood what he was buying. Why hasn't it happened? IMO is because the insurance companies make more money by inflating the bottom line. It's easy for them to complain about the nickels and dimes about rising healthcare costs, pass this along to businesses, provide less coverage, and still rake in the dollars by continuing to pay more for the basic standards of care. Doctors are just doing what they've always done. See how much the insurance company will pay. You and I may not agree on this, but in my experience this is the way it works. The more they push the limits the bigger the numbers get and the bigger the profits. You can't sacrifice the care without lawsuits. I agree making people foot the bill for the first couple K would be interesting, but you still gotta keep the poor people in the system. It's a tough situation, and figuring out where to draw the line is not simple.