And, if you charged 99215s, you would be audited.
In IL, Medicaid pays less for 99215 than 99214, I would NEVER use 99215 with them.
Two thoughts
1. No one is being denied care as I don?t see bodies stacked up outside locked hospital doors.
2. Now the unreimbursed hospital costs are ?distributed or passed on? by a Hospital administrator to private and government payers one way or another. Sneaky but efficient. Under Obamacare YOU will pay additional taxes which are floated out into a sea of bureaucrats and politicians. When this Federal tide goes out hospitals and practitioners get what remains (think pond scum). You will agree nothing is free.
They don't go to the hospital to die, that's why they are not stacked up.. But measures of health outcome are worse in underserved areas.
Preventive medicine IS actively avoided. They will go to the ER for silly stuff that would have been much cheaper to deal with in the office and just not pay the bill. "You can't get blood from a turnip."
Most hospitals have tax exempt status which means they avoid paying property taxes, which are passed on to you. Insurances balk at paying increasingly higher rates to some hospitals so your "sneaky but efficient" method is neither. Property taxes are the sneakiest because they receive the least review. This is the way it was done 30 years ago, but with the ratcheting down of health care payments even hospitals are squeezed. OR they go to the county hospital which might provide free care. Again going to the taxes. Damned if you do, Damned if you don't. Overall poorer health care and they wind up completely unable to work and causing further drain on society. It's cheaper to provide health care for the populace from the beginning than play games. The number one cause of bankruptcy is medical care, and those bills won't get paid either.
