Most agree that we need a healthcare system that encourages people to take care of themselves and covers catastrophic injuries and disease for all people.
I trust the free-market more than government, and some trust the government more than the free market.
MACRA, ACA, HIPAA, HMO act, Medicare and Medicaid were supposed to reduce costs and expenditures. Obviously government only makes it all worse. Looks like a job for the freemarket!
Either way, whichever philosophical system is selected by the people, individuals must freedom of choice and bear their own responsibility to the extent that is humanly possible.
– Craig M. Wax DO
CNBC reports:
Medical emergency: ER costs skyrocket, leaving patients in shock
- Americans are being overcharged by more than $3 billion a year for ER services, according to data from Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.
- Bills can be nearly 13 times the rates paid by Medicare for the same services.
- Americans in the Southeast and Midwest, and poor and minority patients, are the most exploited by emergency-room billing practices, especially at for-profit hospitals.
Read full story:
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/08/10/medical-emergency-er-costs-skyrocket-leaving-patients-in-shock.html
IP4PI - Independent Physicians for Patient independence 
HEALTH INSURANCE COMPANY QUESTIONNAIRE
-to be provided quarterly by any health insurance third party medical organization
by Samuel A. Nigro, MD, copyright c 2017, retired, , deplorable ad hominem pamphleteer, clinical psychiatrist, Case Western Reserve University and University Hospitals of Cleveland
If covered for health care by a health insurance third party medical organization, you are entitled to the following information: The following numerical categories must be provided and explained by every health insurance company on a quarterly basis:
1. DOAR – Days on Accounts Receivable: On average, how many days does it take to pay bills?
2. IDR – Income/Disbursement Ratio: What is the company’s annual income compared to the annual payments for health care?
3. PPIFFS – Percentage Payment in Full First Submission: What is the percentage of payments in full for first time received billings?
4. PTTP – Percentage Transferred to Patients: What is the percentage of billings transferred to patients and not paid by the insurance company?
5. PRB – Percentage Reworked Billings: what percentage of bills require re-work?
6. ARTR – Average Rework Time Required: What is the average rework time required for payment?
7. PDPR – Percent Denials Phone Repair: What percentage of denials require phone call to repair?
8. PDWR – Percent Denials Written Repair: What percentage of denials require written repair?
9. TDP – Time from Denial to Payment: What is the average time from initial denial to full payment?
10. APP – AveragePayment Time: What is the average time to pay bills after initial receipt?
11. PL – Percent Lost: What is the percentage of claims “lost in transit” or “not on file?”
12. AT – What is the administrative time for subscriber payment versus provider payment?
13. PPZ – Percent Paid Zero: What is the percentage of claims not paid or paid at zero dollars?
14. PAPPP – Prior Authorization Percent Performance People Profit: How is “prior authorization” managed – Percent used? Performance type and efficiency? Qualifications of people involved? Profit provided to company by obstructing health care with sham “preauthorizations” or reviews prior to care?
15. PD/SC-R – Provider Disbursement/Subscriber Collection Ratio: What is the ratio of administrative staff and time to pay bills from physicians versus administrative staff and time to collect monies from subscribers?
16. IE – Incentive Equality: Are incentives for prompt payment to physicians also offered in the same way for prompt payment by subscribers?
17. ASSO – Alter Stable Systems Opportunities: How often is the payment system changed besides whenever most physicians have figured it out?
18. PIG – President’s Income Grab: What is the health insurance company’s president’s income grab, i.e., how many health care dollars does the president of the company take for salary?
19. EVIL – Executive Value Insurance Loss: What is the executive value insurance loss, i.e., how many health care dollars are spent on administration and all non-medical and or non-direct care “services?”
20. DUCKA – Doctors Under Contract Kissing Arse (“Quacking” for
short): How many non-practicing physicians are employed by the
company to maintain the facade of medical care? Who are they
(Please send CVs)? Do their medical schools all know what these
graduates are doing? Like physicians with law degrees who helped
destroy the Medical Profession, do employed ex-physicians still add
“M.D.” to their name and pretend they are physicians?
21. NME – Non-Medical Employees: How many employees have no formal
clinical and/or academic medical education? This constitutes what percent
of all employees? Are certified copies of education certificates made
available?
22. AEM – Administrative Employee Manuals: Copies are provided for office
waiting rooms to inform patients where and how their health care dollars
get stolen and might get recovered.
23. ZI – Zimbardo Imitation: Percentage of duplication of Zimbardo’s Prison
Experiment, i.e., to what degree has “powermadness control and conflict”
resulted from the insurance/third party company’s takeover of the Medical
Profession?
All have a right to these numbers and information so that the best decision can be made about choosing your health care coverage instead of going directly one-to-one physician-patient relationship.