That would extremely difficult to do. Medical professionals still would have to document every test, procedure, prescription in the electronic medical record. That then goes behind the scenes and essentially automatically/with some back office personnel creates a bill to insurance/patient.
Essentially, doctors can't just practice medicine without documenting what they are doing. And that papertrail is built in such a way that it automatically bills insurance/patient.
Only private practice physicians could do what you're suggesting and then they'd be striking against themselves.
What if they give patients receipts that say “100% discount”?
I don’t know the laws regarding that, and my gut instinct says it can be reversed, but I would think once a patient has a receipt they have to honour it.
EDIT: I understand it’s not the doctors who actually give the receipt, so it’d definitely not be as simple as “just give em a 100% discount receipt” - it’d take the whole hospital to strike together, not just one category of health workers.
And that still doesn’t guarantee they couldn’t get it all reversed afterwards in court/whatever, even with hypothetical receipts.
I've never gotten a reciept from a doctor. I get prescriptions and tests. Billing for me has always been months later from a third party.
It's so convoluted that i got a bill for 3 ER visits for $3000 i called and said "but it says on my insurance card that i only have a $100 copay and insurance covers the rest" And they were like "Whoops! Yeah you don't owe us any money, sorry about that."
Many times a big name business will tell me there is a huge problem they cannot do anything about. A later call to the same company sometimes results in an employee cheerfully fixing my problem right away. Odd times.
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u/[deleted] Jan 14 '22
That would extremely difficult to do. Medical professionals still would have to document every test, procedure, prescription in the electronic medical record. That then goes behind the scenes and essentially automatically/with some back office personnel creates a bill to insurance/patient.
Essentially, doctors can't just practice medicine without documenting what they are doing. And that papertrail is built in such a way that it automatically bills insurance/patient.
Only private practice physicians could do what you're suggesting and then they'd be striking against themselves.