agracer said:
I just called the Urgent Care clinic.
Cash pay is $143.50 for an office visit, and $54 for covid/flu/something test.
Mad at myself b/c I know better than this. Always ask the cash price at these places. My family has saved $1,000's in insurance coverage over the last 10 years on the high deductible plan. I just didn't think $189 was unreasonable for the late night urgent care visit and didn't think a flu test would be $390!
Maybe they were just trying to milk the insurance. We will see what the actually bill me.
My son got his finger slammed in a locker about 10-years ago. Called his doctor, it was an office visit, then go to an image center, then radiologist to read the x-ray, then fee for splint...blah blah blah,...probably would have cost me $500+ for all that nonsense.
Called an Urgent care, aske for cash price for office visit, X-ray and splint. The lady on the phone said "$89 for office visit, $50 for X-ray and no cost for the splint". So went there, paid the $139 and walked out with a splint on his ring finger.
Cash is the way to go. Doc offices like cash pay better because they do better with cash pay.
I have seen UC billing/collections. They prob avg $150/pp across the board from all insurances. For that $150 they have to pay a biller 5-7% of collections, they wait 2-6 months for payment. So they get back about $140.
Your cash pay is $200 which they get immediately without a wait.
So with your high deductible insurance, if the UC billed $1K then your insurance discounts it to say $500 then your are on the hook for $500 towards your deductble.
If you hit your deductible or have low/no deductible insurance then the UC bills $1k, your insurance discount may be $500 but what they pay may be $150. The UC can accept or can continue negotiation. Many times they will accept b/c going through further billing negotiations is time consuming and may garner an extra $50-100.
So you may think the UC made $500 off all insured visits but this is far from the case.