Finding out the price is only half the battle - finding out every doctor who might be involved in a procedure so you can make sure they're in network is the other half. Getting healthcare - even with insurance - can be terrifying.
"Sorry, the anesthesiologist was out of network, though everyone else in the hospital is in network"
After that I went to Kaiser because I'm not sure its possible to go out of network at least like that.
On particular phone call stands out. We got our insurance on a 3-way call with my SO and the hospital billing. For a urology test they charged us ~$800 for the test strip (just a single one!), which the hospital tried to claim was not covered (nothing, it seems, is ever 'covered'). Even the insurance person on the phone was aghast at the hospital: "Wait, so you are telling us that even urological tests, like a basic pH strip, at the specific office for urology, is $3000? What is our client even paying for, like, what is it exactly, that a urologist does? How much does a smile cost?"
US Medical billing makes Kafka blush.
https://www.tdi.texas.gov/news/2018/tdi10082018.html
> The problem meant consumers couldn’t get in-network anesthesia services at more than 20 hospitals and surgical centers in three of the state’s largest metro areas.
https://www.vox.com/2018/5/23/17353284/emergency-room-doctor...
> Except he wasn’t: While the emergency room where Kohan was seen was in his insurance network, the oral surgeon who worked in that ER was not. That’s how Kohan ended up with a $7,924 bill from the oral surgeon that his health plan declined.
> Separate data from the Center for Public Policy Priorities, an Austin-based think tank, finds that a staggering number of Texas emergency rooms have zero in-network emergency physicians — meaning that patients are guaranteed to see a doctor who does not accept their health insurance.
Someone up thread made a claim and the burden of proof was on them. Now multiple reliable sources have been provided to satisfy that proof.
You claim an unspecified law prohibit this and that this prohibition actually works. So now the burden of proof falls on you to actually cite the law and provide reliable sources of this law actually working.
Texas got mad here because there were no in-network anesthesia services. Having some out-of-network providers is depressingly common, and hard to guard against:
https://www.modernhealthcare.com/article/20180917/NEWS/18091...
> About 25% of patient visits to hospitals in their insurance network result in balance billing from care by out-of-network physicians.
Also, from the Vox article:
> The problem with that law, Pogue argues, is that it requires patients to contact the state — and patients often aren’t aware of the option. Kohan, for example, didn’t know he had these rights until I told him. Pogue’s research suggests this is really common: Only 3,824 Texas patients have used the law to resolve their surprise bills since 2009. CPPP estimates that this is a tiny fraction of the 250,000 surprise medical bills sent out in the same time frame.
This is just Texas, too. Plenty of states don't have their 2009 state law to work with.
https://www.cnbc.com/2016/11/16/many-get-hit-with-surprise-o...