Did you know that:
a doctor is now followed by a billing assistant and a data recorder now. One to make sure the maximum amount is billed under the new classifications and one to record all the information in the new mandatory electronic records system?
That one type of Staph infection can be charged at a mere $3,000 to $5,000 to treat and another costs more than $20,000? That there are monitors in the hospital system that look over the doctors records to correct and encourage them to charge for the more expensive disease category?
They have to do that because the insurance pays them a fraction of the charge. They have to multiply the charge in order to get their own costs back plus some net income. I have Medicare Advantage and when I get my statements of costs and payments the Insurance company pays as little as a third or sometimes a tenth of the billed charge. At my annual required physical I get so much blood drawn I might as well be donating at the Bloodmobile and the list of tests can run to a page and a half. Most of them seem to have no relation to anything that might pertain to me. A doctor that accepts Medicare patients has to do that to make it worth taking them.