…wait till you get a bill from your doctor or hospital.

One of the most confusing and frustrating parts of health insurance is the way doctors, hospitals and testing facilities bill for their services and how insurance companies interpret those bills. What started out as a simple process has evolved into a complex medical-billing system that only experts in the medical-coding field can understand. In an April, 2, 2017 New York Times Sunday Magazine article by Elisabeth Rosenthal titled “The Code Rush”  Rosenthal reports on the history of healthcare coding and the indecipherable and complex system it has become.  She reports on how this coding system contributes to higher medical costs and has “given birth to a gigantic new industry of consultants, armies of back-room experts whom medical providers and insurance companies deploy against each other in an endless war over which medical procedures were undertaken and how much to pay for them”.

I recommend everyone read this article so you can get a glimpse of how complicated our healthcare system has become. We will all go to the doctor at some point in our life and when the bills come at least you will have a better understanding of what to expect and maybe even be prepared to battle with your insurance company or doctor over the charges.