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I know healthcare is complex, much more so than wrenching, but the idea that we don't know how to price things isn't true. There are codes for all this stuff, there's plenty of data on what a procedure involves (in terms of consumables/times/equipment) that can be used to blend it.
Any healthcare provider already does all of this for P&L reporting, care plans, etc. but they have to hide what they know to negotiate with insurers and the government.
They don't have to hide the terms of the agreement that they signed with said insurers. The insurers already have this! They both signed the agreement!
Sure, they can continue hiding their internal costs, but those were never something that the patient cared about anyway. The patient cares about what they're going to get billed, which is a number in an agreement that both the provider and the insurance company have.
In the auto mechanic example, this is like saying that the shop owner hides how he compensates his employees, pays for consumables/times/equipment/etc. That's all perfectly fine. I don't care to know that. Just tell me what number you're planning on putting on my bill.
You're misunderstanding. The medical complex knows how much treatment costs, what margins are, all of it.
An insurer - if they had that information - would use it for more leverage when negotiating their payment agreements. They can put together something like it when they're big enough to compare costs across multiple systems, but that's about it.
You're misunderstanding. No one is asking for their internal treatment costs/margins/etc. They keep that hidden. Then they sign an agreement. That agreement has numbers in it. Different numbers from their internal treatment costs/margins/etc. Those numbers are known to both parties. They both signed a document with those numbers in it! They are not keeping those numbers hidden. Those numbers are the ones that they can give to patients.
Yeah seems like we're talking past each other here. I'm not disputing that at all. There's not a good reason to hide these costs from consumers.
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