But I doubt it.
Another example of the corruption and sleeze that is our healthcare insurance industry.
My son has been getting some occupational therapy for a few months, and while covered by insurance, they just love to try to nickel and dime the amount paid to you every time. If there's a typo or a wrong code or anything, rather than, you know, call and ask you about it, they'll just say "oooo, we don't cover that" in the EOB letter you get 60 days later. And then you call and complain, and it goes back in queue for 15 days, and you get a little more money, but not all of it, and repeat until you max out what you're owed. In other words, they string it out long enough so that they pay as late as possible and get a nice interest free loan from you. Now that's shitty, but you all know about this, so I'm not writing about that.
I'm in my OT's office yesterday, when he shows me a fax from a third party company, who has "been contracted to provide expedited resolution of claims." They offer to take what the OT is owed- say $200, and offer the OT $150 to get the money right now. Today. Basically, you pay $50 for an expedited claim, and you don't have to call and haggle and complain until you get your money. And this is on the healthcare provider side.
Do I really need to point out the outright shady behavior here? The insurance company takes forever to pay the OT, so long, in fact, that it's worthwhile for a 3rd party to start a company, and offer to pay them to get screwed by the insurance company out of money they owe you. And, I'm sure, the insurance company is not paying the $50 to the 3rd party company, but in fact maybe paying $40 and keeping $10 for itself.
So, by delaying the process, and forcing healthcare providers to battle for every cent, they've created a cottage industry that reinforces this delaying process by providing a quick-out, provided you're willing to get screwed to get cash now. Just like a check-cashing joint on the corner.
I, of course, called my provider to ask them if they just sold my very confidential information to the third party, and they of course, claim that its not a 3rd party, but a wholly owned subsidiary of the insurer. Except the part on the letter that says- "has contracted with company x". So someone is lying somewhere.
Anyway. What can you do? I'm getting the services my kid needs, so I can't really complain. But, in the aggregate, screwing everyone over by a few dollars here and there is how you can make billions off a fucked up, broken, piece of shit system, like the one we have here.
So, I'm sure I'm dreaming that crap like this will be OUTLAWED by HCR, but dreaming is what we liberal types do best, no?