You can thank the AMA RVU cartel for the huge disparity between surgical reimbursement, which feeds hospitals, and office visits.
BCBS pays about 1200 to 1800 for colonoscopy here, but I think Medicare is just a few hundred. Likewise, a hip replacement is about 15,000 with BCBS (one surgeon is doing several a day) but $1500 medicare.
BCBS is our best payer. Until recently we could do labs through Quest and bill the patient for the labs, but the recently stopped allowing this. However, they cannot stop us for billing labs done in house, so many of us have purchased our own machines.
