NC
“The only way to avoid that would be if hatzalah could pay it without the patient ever even seeing it. I’m not sure that’s possible.”
I second DY’s question “NCB, are you now seeing things differently than when you said you haven’t seen a rational reason not to bill insurance?”
And I should note I raised this concern in the very first post on this thread (after the OP)
The point of a deductible/copay is PRECISELY to deter patients from going to the doctor. A person won’t go to his/her doctor for sniffles if he knows it will cost him $20. OF course if its been going long enough, at some point it is worth the $20 and he’ll go. (Anecdotally, I have seen those whith medicare which often doesnt have a copay do have a lower threshold to seek medical care, I am not aware of any hard data on this, and this may not be a bad thing per se) .
I don’t know about ambulance billing, but I do know about office billing and Joseph is exactly right “Insurance contracts and federal Medicare regulations prohibit a provider from forgiving (or paying themselves for the patient) the copay or deductible.””
That isn’t to say copays arent waived for family/friends/professional courtesy/ financial need/ etc but these cases are TECHNICALLY insurance fraud (I’m anonymous here, right?) and obviously if done often enough and publicly at some point it would invite an audit.