Using health insurance plans to pay for routine office-based or outpatient care actually costs you much more than if you had paid for these services yourself. You know that’s true since the health insurance industry makes fat profits every year from unnecessary coverage.

  • 2/3 of all the healthcare delivered annually in the U.S. is generally affordable routine office-based or outpatient care.
  • Outside of healthcare almost no other form of insurance covers small or generally affordable routine expenses. Does your car insurance cover oil changes?
  • Yet, the health insurance industry covers small and generally affordable routine care services. Why? Because it’s very profitable for them
  • To control access to generally affordable routine medical services health plans have created a gigantic and inefficient administration system that wastes some $840 billion dollars annually. These costs are simply passed on to you and your doctors 
  • Physician practice overhead has been driven to 70 percent by health plans to meet their burdensome administrative demands
  • In order to profit at the expense of patients and doctors health plans have created inumerable barriers to the access of routine care 
  • Barriers to access that include exclusions for pre-existing conditions and so-called non-covered services, arbitrary provider networks, one-sided contracts with physicians, inconvenient enrollment periods and authorizations for care that are typically determined by a non-medical third party intermediary working for the health plan
  • Out-of-pocket costs that are passed on to patients and increase every year. In addition to plan costs there are copays and deductibles – most millennials never meet their deductibles so they usually pay for their routine care and the “privilege” of having a health plan 
  • Physician workloads have increased considerably and contributed to an increase in physician burnout – physicians are now much more selective about which plans they sign up with including Medicare and Medicaid
  • Stripped healthcare decision-making autonomy from both patients and doctors

Self pay for routine care expenses is usually far cheaper in the long run than dealing with plan costs, deductibles, copays, non-covered services and insurance-based rules. To cover the low possibility of a major medical or catastrophic event you can consider high deductible or catastrophic plans. 

Visit https://healthdrum.com/  Come join the healthcare community and pay only for the care you need. Your body, your rules.

Find direct pay doctors and clinics near me.

Read more.
https://www.consumerreports.org/healthcare-costs/how-paying-your-doctor-in-cash-could-save-you-money/

https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-to-cut-your-health-care-bill-pay-cash-1455592277

Written by HEALTHdrum