A quick Monday morning nod to the wisdom of Bachman-Turner Overdrive. Having applied the wisdom of these lyrics for many years they once again proved their relevance as I read the article from Friday’s Minneapolis - St. Paul Star Tribune. The article is titled UnitedHealth billing flaws persist as company grew by David Shaffer. Below is a quick overview.

The articles first line sets the tone.

“As UnitedHealth has grown this decade into a national insurance colossus, the company has repeatedly failed a basic job: paying patients’ medical bills correctly or on time.”

UnitedHealth Group is a company on the move. They have grown to become an insurer of 70 million Americans and are watching their company profits soar to an estimated $4.7 billion this year.

While profits have soared so have lawsuits and fines against the company from all sides. One …

I wasn’t able to get out go shopping on Black Friday so I thought I would do some catching up today. Since we are now in the season when “it” is going around, I thought I would be a good healthcare consumer and get some prices for a strep test for when I might need one. I thought my question was simple enough. “How much do you charge for a strep test?” I made a list of general practioners provided by my current insurance provider’s web site. I thought this is going to be easy, it even identified which of the fifteen practices were accepting new patients. I soon discovered how wrong my initial impression was.

The first office I called explained that their fee for a strep test has a sliding scale based on what they end up having to …