How the C Gets More F-d

Great article in the New York Times about how medical billing varies from how much Medicare pays for procedures and how private insurance handles some outlandish cases:

High Fees Common in Medical Care, Survey Finds

Eye opener:

“But Dr. Robert M. Wah, a spokesman for the American Medical Association, says there is another side to the story — insurers’ low payments to doctors who enter into contracts with them and the doctors’ difficulties, in many cases, in getting paid at all. That is why, he said, doctors may simply abandon insurance plans. Then patients end up with extra fees because they have to go outside their networks to get the care they want.”

You would think doctors would be more vocal about billing and admin costs in dealing with private insurance companies as well as insurance companies dealing with what “out of network” means. Looks like another layer of gaming and private industry (both on the physicians side and the insurance companies side) run amok.