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The fight between doctors and insurance companies over 'downcoding'

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Re: The fight between doctors and insurance companies over 'downcoding'

#191
post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FSAs are insane, conceptually. "Guess how much money you're spending in a year on healthcare! But beee caaareful: if you guess too high, YOU LOSE IT" I still used mine while I still had access to one, but it was grumpy-making and was usually almost more trouble than it was worth.

It is a relatively easy fix tbh. You spend on medical bills through the account like you do right now, but the way you fund it is your post tax contributions. At the end of the year the account sends you a statement of what you used and you can use it to get the tax paid on the money back when you file the taxes.

> At the end of the year the account sends you a statement of what you used and you can use it to get the tax paid on the money back when you file the taxes.

If you underestimate the amount you spend by more than the rollover limit, you can't get that money back.

So on top of the broken employer-tied health insurance system, we have gamified the financing of out of pocket medical expenses.

On top of that, if you lose your job part way through the year, you lose the balance of any FSA funds remaining (they belong to your employer - I found that out the hard way).

Re: The fight between doctors and insurance companies over 'downcoding'

#192

I'm on the side of the insurance companies. they are likely the only "responsible adults" keeping providers in check. Providers are extremely wasteful and "creative" with their billing. Staff are generally idle, and staff-to-patient ratios are 10-20:1 if not more. There is little urgency around the clinic, staff take off at 4pm and are impossible to catch on a Friday. Every procedure bills a redundant and pointless "…

Most doctors don’t do their own billing. It’s too complex. They have specialists who take their notes and turn them into bills.

Re: The fight between doctors and insurance companies over 'downcoding'

#193

My pediatrician always charges us for an office visit + preventative care when we go in for a preventative care visit. It's obviously to get more $$ from insurance. I feel like this goes both ways...

Yeah enough gets talked about insurers acting in bad faith, but let’s not forget hospitals also acting in bad faith for their end. Some personal examples: 1. Sitting in a Urgent care. They get you in the exam room. You sit there for 15 mins, doctor comes and sees you for 5 mins (mostly rushes the exam), do a blood draw, ask me to sit around while they run the test, doctor leaves, as soon as 45 mins are over the nurse…

>I go in person, get antibiotics and get cured.

Or it was viral after all and you cleared it on your own.

Doctors who specialize in this have a hard time accurately distinguishing bacterial infections from viral. There’s no reason to trust your own opinion on the matter. It’s too easy to fool yourself.

If doctors prescribed antibiotics to every person who came in insisting they have a bacterial infection, we’d all be in for a bad time.

Re: The fight between doctors and insurance companies over 'downcoding'

#194

I've seen a lot of upcoding on my bills and it really aggravates me. It's fraud and the doctors should be happy that the insurance company is just reducing their payments instead of dropping them or trying to get them prosecuted. When someone loads their grocery bag full of cosmetics and razor blades, they get on the news and YouTube, but when a doctor systematically bills for services he didn't perform to the tune o…

Doctors lose their license and go to jail for Medicare fraud all the time.

Re: The fight between doctors and insurance companies over 'downcoding'

#195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here are the magic words in US Health Care: "What is the cash price?" It's usually less than you think and often worth avoiding the insurance company hassle. Then you can just get reimbursed with your FSA or HSA anyway.

This is absolutely unacceptable when per employee healthcare employer costs are basically now something like, I don't know, 20,000-25,000 USD?

I’m not precisely sure but I think my health coverage paid by my employer is like 15-20% of my salary

Re: The fight between doctors and insurance companies over 'downcoding'

#197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And if you're wrong on your medical expense paperwork it could be a felony! Why shouldn't the institutions that do this all day and claim it as their special expertise handle all of this? Why should I even be /capable/ of losing money due to my lack of experience with the system? The money is forfeited back to the employer. There should be a law that money is now taxed and forwarded to the employee in their regular p…

Like I said, you don’t have to do anything. It’s would be like your W2 as long as you use your account.

What do you mean by 'use the account'? Spend the money? That's the problem. If you don't have enough expenses you just lose the money. That's why I've never used one of these.

Re: The fight between doctors and insurance companies over 'downcoding'

#198
I wonder how this sentence ended up with so many commas.

> The problem, doctors say, is that lower and lower reimbursements mean reliable community doctors, like Wagner, could have to make choices that are inherently bad for patients, like cramming more patient visits into a single day to make up for lost revenue, dropping patients on certain insurance plans, or selling their practices altogether.

Re: The fight between doctors and insurance companies over 'downcoding'

#199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Australia I just take my blood test form to any pathology place and they do it for free (for me) and bill the government a set price from the medicare benefits schedule.

Hmm sure, but there must similarly be things that are denied right? I lived in both systems. In a single payer system, the state essentially decide what is allowed and what is not. And with the state as a single payer, they also go back and forth on price with the hospitals. It still is a better system overall but there is no places where you can just spend as much as you want on healthcare without some type of centr…

> In a single payer system, the state essentially decide what is allowed and what is not.

Usually if the state decides you are not eligible for something (for example, some examination), you can just pay and get it anyway.

Re: The fight between doctors and insurance companies over 'downcoding'

#200

I'm on the side of the insurance companies. they are likely the only "responsible adults" keeping providers in check. Providers are extremely wasteful and "creative" with their billing. Staff are generally idle, and staff-to-patient ratios are 10-20:1 if not more. There is little urgency around the clinic, staff take off at 4pm and are impossible to catch on a Friday. Every procedure bills a redundant and pointless "…

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