<story><title>Many surprise medical bills are now illegal</title><url>https://www.axios.com/surprise-medical-bills-illegal-doctors-insurers-faac35a7-a2db-4555-a172-7de5f4c3cc54.html</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>etempleton</author><text>It will be interesting to see if this changes anything on my next visit to the hospital. When my child was born we asked in advance both insurance and the hospital for a cost estimate. No one could provide one. We were then proceeded to be sent bills from various parties for over a year. We had no idea if we were to pay it, insurance was to pay it, if we had already paid it and there was an accounting error. Each bill was as vague as the next with only the company name to go off of. The whole thing is&amp;#x2F;was perposterous. Can the hospital not act as a mediary and collate all of the charges on a single line itemed bill? Because that is how everything else in the world works.&lt;p&gt;From what I can gather.there is some sinister game hospitals and medical insurance play, but you would think that, oh, I don’t know, it would save time and money for them both to just come up with some agreed upon pricing and save some administrator overhead.</text></comment>
<story><title>Many surprise medical bills are now illegal</title><url>https://www.axios.com/surprise-medical-bills-illegal-doctors-insurers-faac35a7-a2db-4555-a172-7de5f4c3cc54.html</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>kelnos</author><text>This is truly a great improvement, but not including ground ambulances in this is messed up.  And reeks of a special-interest lobbying group pushing for it.&lt;p&gt;This also really bothers me:&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; &lt;i&gt;Out-of-network doctors also must inform patients about what their care might cost, and they may ask patients to sign a form that waives their protections. (Be leery of signing this, consumer rights experts say.)&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s a very weak law when you can still sign away your rights to someone who has the stronger end of a power&amp;#x2F;information imbalance.  Emergency care is supposed to be covered by this law, but if you&amp;#x27;re in bad shape and show up at the ER, you might sign anything just to get care.</text></comment>