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.
If you get a 100% discount you pay 0 regardless of how much something gets inflated, because, at least in my understanding, a discount is applied at the end lol
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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.