Gee you mean adding government in the middle does not drive down costs?

The history of government involvement in health care is coincident with the astronomical increases in the cost of health care.

fabulous. I will be checking into this organization for my own business. thank you for posting.

Cost shifting... government requires at least some providers to treat anyone who presents themselves to at least a stable condition... ability to pay is not a requirement... for the provider to stay in business that lost revenue has to be recovered from somewhere. There are some government programs to reimburse providers for uncompensated care. As a young adult with healthcare insurance I would pay the provider directly then file a claim with my insurer to be reimbursed... I suppose insurers and providers relationship has evolved beyond the point where that would still be feasible given the coding monster created over decades.

I liked the question about accepting chickens as payment. The doctor didn't rule it out!

It's unfortunate that this is a radical idea in today's world: You want a service. You check provider pricing and track record of success. You give them money when the work's done.

When our child's pediatrician office stopped taking our insurance, which we never use, they said they're sorry we can't use the doctor anymore. We said we didn't care. The billing office could not get the concept that we would pay them money. We had to get the doctor involved, who was a partner there and had some basic business sense. The docs typically hire medical billing people, and in my area medical billing people are used to people buying low-deductible insurance and putting every piddling little service through the insurance.