Not even doctors can tell you what they charge

We live in a wonderful county and great a state. The vast majority of its people are hard working and honest. But sometimes things can get rather crazy to the point where a person or a family could almost cry.

What am I talking about? Health care! People have a hard time understanding how it works.

No, I’m not talking about calling and making an appointment to see my doctor. That’s fairly easy. And if there is an issue that needs to be addressed quickly, the medical staff will make a point of getting a patient in early, maybe send them to another doctor or even recommend going to the emergency room if the situation is serious. Even making a general appointment is seldom more than a matter of a few days or a week’s wait. Service is good-to-excellent.

As for my family, it does help that we have and can afford quality insurance policy and health coverage. Not having coverage – a situation in which about 45 million people in this country find themselves – that is a serious issue.

And few people understand the cost, charges, and billing – it can be bewildering.

I’m talking about understanding the costs of services provided and how doctors, hospitals, and other service providers come up with their costs. It’s like magic.

Most often you get the reported billing long after the fact. When we go to the store to purchase an item, such as food, clothing, refrigerator, or car, the price is listed. Right away we have a good understanding what the up-front costs will be and we can look at options. We can even question the price.

While it is true that things are a bit different when dealing with a medical procedure, it stands to reason that everyone should understand what the basic costs will be.

Who knows, maybe the medical community feels it is so costly we really don’t want to know the costs up front – it might make us really ill.

Part of the fault is the insurance provider. They do work on pricing with different doctors and clinics within an area and they give us a list of “approved” providers and clinics covered by their insurance. While is it a good deal to cut their costs any cost increases by a provider is just passed on to the policy holder. How hard are they fighting to hold down consumer costs or trying to keep their costs within reason for themselves and in line with their competitors? That’s an interesting question which may not have the same answer from each insurance provider.

I like my doctor and the clinic for which he works. But when I asked him about price – and I have not done that often for he is a busy person – he says he records the services he provides in a code but pricing is something he does not deal with.

When I recently returned one of those informational slips that said “this is not a bill,” with a note questioning some billing costs, I did get a call back. While the caller was very polite, the answer I got was basically, “Well that is how we do it.” That person did say she would pass along to her superior one of my suggestions on a billing practice. Whether or not they adopted it, I never did hear.

We all understand that doctors, nurses, specialists and general staff need and deserve a reasonably good wage for their education, skill, training, and experience. But the costs sometimes seem critically high. Should the cost for colon inspection be thousands of dollars for a couple of hours of work – or is that price far too high? The same might be said for any number of procedures.

What is the cost of a doctor’s visit, a blood test, or host of other normal services? Those basic services should be posted for all to see. There are people who say taxes are too high; maybe so, but those same people might begin to ask why our health care bills have gotten so high.