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Not seeing these bills would be incredible. Having them all covered in the same way would be fantastic. Instead, for us, states need to enact surprise billing laws since each provider can mysteriously be out-of-network despite working within a hospital that is in-network. The in-network concept is complete bullshit to start with, but then you have to have complete documentation of every person involved in whatever care you are getting.

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This is what infuriates me the most about healthcare in the US. I give someone my card, they enter the numbers with no indication of whether or not everything will be covered by insurance (they assume you just know).

Then, a month later, I receive a bill indicating a routine procedure that I assumed out of ignorance was covered by insurance (since they took my card and entered the numbers without saying anything to the contrary) for $500 (or, god forbid, more).

If I knew a salad at a restaurant were $200, I probably wouldn’t order it. There is no basic transparency in medical billing, and that needs to change.

It’s actually even worse. If you (or the Dr’s) could reliably tell how it was even going to be coded (aka categorized/identified) in the system in advance, it would already be a huge step up.

Then you’d only have a handful of different prices you might have to pay.

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