I would imagine, but don't know for sure, that a private insurance company might pay quite a bit more than this.
"I would imagine, but don't know for sure, that a private insurance company might pay quite a bit more than this."
You'd be wrong. Our average third party private insurance pays between 105-115% of Medicare for office visits in "big" city SC. This thread for more info: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1773796/posts
Medicare is such the dominate player now (anywhere between 25-60%) of the reimbursed fees of a practice, that the price is kept low (obviously, there are many more variables, such as doctors not able to strike, not able to organize collectively for rates, etc). This is why doctors were screaming this year about the scheduled 5% cut from Medicare this year. That would've been the point for many of the doctors (like the orig. posting) that a big portion would've said "SEE YA" to Medicare.