[softsound]

American medical practices are predatory, you literally never know what you are paying for until after you agreed to it. This type of debt should not be legal. The fact no one knows until months later is just idiotic.

Do you agree to pay for a car with no idea the cost? Then find random bills from people who glanced at the car or might be involved even if you didn't meet them? Well too bad if you want to visit a doctor you have to.

In what world should this this possible? I got a in-network nose examine that I'm happy my insurance paid the $1k+ for the 5 min examine to find out my nose was normal. I didn't realize there was a third party bill though, while it wasn't much imagine if I had some $5k examine or $20k examine, I'd not know the difference until I got the bill because it's America. You'd think since the insurance and hospital are same company this could be easier but no, multiple different payment companies for the different types of bills too. I have to look in multiple areas to check everything is paid for. How much more overly complicated can they make it?

[mindslight]

Completely agreed. If supermarkets operated like the medical industry, you may or may not pay for your food at the checkout but then over the next year you'd get arbitrary bills from the cashier, stocking clerk, truck drivers, the busker standing outside, etc. Obviously this would destroy any semblance of a market dynamic. And lo and behold when we look at the medical industry we see complete market failure, having taken most patient agency along with it.

There have to be laws backing up this nonsensical practice of sending arbitrary and inflated post-facto bills, because if anybody else engaged in this sort of thing it would rightly be considered fraud. Such a privilege may have made sense back when the medical industry was more honest and less brazenly extractive, but at this point it's a dynamic they've set up around enthusiastically abusing. One of the main pillars of any type of healthcare reform should be getting rid of such laws, and then AGs going after any company that continues engaging in this type of billing fraud.

[BlackjackCF]

It blew my mind when moved to Ireland and saw that GPs/dentists etc. posted prices for services. How sad is that?