![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
So, I called Duke Sports Medicine today and got an appointment for next Thursday. Fine.
I get the online checkin email and go to the site to go through it. Insurance is right, agree to pay for shit, hit the second to last page and find a box filled with $250 that I'm expected to pay, rather than the $30 copay that's in my benefits booklet.
Oh, it's a HOSPITAL-based service, and subject to my deductible before anything else. It had better fucking NOT be $250 each fucking time. Hospitals can choose whether to have outpatient clinics, and they can choose whether to bill insurance as facility-based (and get the patient's full deductible) or as a free-standing clinic and just get their copay. Of course they'll choose the higher bill. Profit über alles.
And the BCBS-NC website has no option to find a physical therapist in their "find a doctor" area. It's not an option on its own, and it's not under specialties, so I can't "shop around" as free market fellaters would have me do to find one that isn't hospital-based and thus only subject to my $30 copay.
Update: I called the clinic back to see if that would be an every-time thing or just this once, and the guy who answered didn't think that sounded quite right (like it hadn't been billed to insurance yet, which they do the day before the appointment), so he transferred me to the person who handles insurance, who was either away from her desk or on another line. I left a slightly rambly voicemail asking whether I'd be paying the deductible or a copay or if it'd be $250 every time or what.
Update 2: The person who handles insurance called back. I met my hospital deductible already (that sinus CT back in October, which was clean and bought me the neurologist referral), and I'll have to pay nothing for it (until fall, if I'm still going in, when I pay the $250 again). Because it's hospital-based, not clinic-based, I don't even have to pay the $30 copay. Which is better, I suppose, but still unexpected to see "yes, you will owe $250 for your appointment. Please pay $100 in advance, and you'll be responsible for the balance upon arrival." (There's an option to skip payment, which I did, because it sounded entirely wrong, and I figured I'd pay it when I got to the appointment if I had to.)
ObProSinglePayer: Because clearly, the government couldn't be any LESS efficient than having an entire department that deals with the ins and outs of the dozens of insurance providers and their dozens of plans.
I get the online checkin email and go to the site to go through it. Insurance is right, agree to pay for shit, hit the second to last page and find a box filled with $250 that I'm expected to pay, rather than the $30 copay that's in my benefits booklet.
Oh, it's a HOSPITAL-based service, and subject to my deductible before anything else. It had better fucking NOT be $250 each fucking time. Hospitals can choose whether to have outpatient clinics, and they can choose whether to bill insurance as facility-based (and get the patient's full deductible) or as a free-standing clinic and just get their copay. Of course they'll choose the higher bill. Profit über alles.
And the BCBS-NC website has no option to find a physical therapist in their "find a doctor" area. It's not an option on its own, and it's not under specialties, so I can't "shop around" as free market fellaters would have me do to find one that isn't hospital-based and thus only subject to my $30 copay.
Update: I called the clinic back to see if that would be an every-time thing or just this once, and the guy who answered didn't think that sounded quite right (like it hadn't been billed to insurance yet, which they do the day before the appointment), so he transferred me to the person who handles insurance, who was either away from her desk or on another line. I left a slightly rambly voicemail asking whether I'd be paying the deductible or a copay or if it'd be $250 every time or what.
Update 2: The person who handles insurance called back. I met my hospital deductible already (that sinus CT back in October, which was clean and bought me the neurologist referral), and I'll have to pay nothing for it (until fall, if I'm still going in, when I pay the $250 again). Because it's hospital-based, not clinic-based, I don't even have to pay the $30 copay. Which is better, I suppose, but still unexpected to see "yes, you will owe $250 for your appointment. Please pay $100 in advance, and you'll be responsible for the balance upon arrival." (There's an option to skip payment, which I did, because it sounded entirely wrong, and I figured I'd pay it when I got to the appointment if I had to.)
ObProSinglePayer: Because clearly, the government couldn't be any LESS efficient than having an entire department that deals with the ins and outs of the dozens of insurance providers and their dozens of plans.
