Make direct payments between doctor and patient, remove all middleman as much as possible. Market itself will dictate the cost of the care. For services where insurance coverage is not present cost of the care does not explode like the service where insurance coverage is present. one hour of esthethic surgery under general anesthesia costs 5k, one hour of non esthetic surgery is billed as 25k. Insurance companies insert themselves between patient and doctors and at the end they collect money and take no responsibility. Patients do not sue insurance companies when something goes wrong.
Hospitals charge as much as possible to insurance companies, more than market would allow under normal circumstances. Insurance companies reimburse 20-30 cents on a dollar, but shows the entire charge to the public telling them they negotiatied a lower rate on their behalf. Of course this is a fallacy.
Patients do not need insurance company to negotitate for them. Everyone can and is a best advocate for themselves. If they do not like the price of the care they can go to someone else. For the very poor segment of population which would be about 5-10 %, providers are in general charitable but currently they are not allowed to do pro bono work, otherwise it is an insurance fraud. This has to stop. If government stops overtaxing people can and will have more resources to spend on a charitable care.
Bravo - this is an excellent idea. I think it can be expanded to include HSAs that individuals & companies con contribute to. These can be backed by T-Bills so they keep up w/inflation & can be willed/gifted to others.
Like you mention, providers ‘know’ the cost (Medicare/aid schedule) so payment can be rendered at time of service and complex ‘coding’ is eliminated. Providers who support this ‘insurance’ don’t need to carry malpractice insurance - any claims are capped to, say 2M - modest $$ to ensure a secure life & guilty parties have 3 strikes and are no longer part of the program.
Agreed. Lots of parties are benefitting from what was supposed to be a simple transaction between patient and doctor/ provider. Insurance companies (including all the components of it), billing companies, collection companies, malpractice insurance companies, malpractice lawyers to name a few. All those prices are baked in the cost. As a public we all pay for it. Simpler the system is less costly it will become. Market will dictate the rate. People can choose to do whichever procedure they want after making a shared decision with their doctor.
It will be easier for doctors too, they would not be beholden to some hospital administrator. Because of current system private offices close at record rate, doctors become employee of large hospital chains.
Tbag, ty 4 thoughtful reply. The last part, Dr ending up working for large Corp. was especially poignant. Like many I suspect, my provider was great, personable, took his time etc. Soon as they sold out it was like being processed in bootcamp. But I digress…