Saw this post on the DailyKos that just so perfectly illustrates the state of our healthcare system.

Jollygreen does a great job of breaking down his costs and pointing out how the hospitals have increased their chargemasters in an effort to drive up their reimbursement. To top it off, the hospitals are pushing through as many people as they want simply processing transaction with no regard for things in context such as sending the bill for an ultrasound along with the bill for the other services associated with the miscarriage of that child one week later.

This just underscores again what poor business people most healthcare companies are.

Their approach to smaller reimbursements is simply to increase the billing amount. The approach to dealing with them is to simply low-ball them. Go ahead. Call up the hospital billing office and ask for a discount. They did not feel bad about simply raising the price with no rationale as to the amount. You should not feel bad about not using any rational reason for the lower amount you want to pay.