post the sixth, 2013

we got an EOB the other day... you know what that is, right? EOB? explanation of benefits? it's when your insurance sends you that summary about how much your dr appt cost and how much they paid and if you owe any remaining. generally, i don't pay a ton of attention to those. i look, be sure it's the correct name and date, see if there's a remaining balance, and then i file it. so, this one comes the other day and i glance down the $$ column, and it says that the dr charged $120, the insurance paid $56 and "saved" me the remaining $64. if i were uninsured, would the dr have charged me $120? or, is that a faked up rate, pumped up so it can be discounted? and, they "saved" me $64?! they didn't save me anything. i pay a grand amount for insurance. it would probably be cheaper to remain uninsured and spend the $120 on the occasional dr visit. of course, i'd be SOL if i ran aground of some sort of actual medical issue. i mean, it's one thing to think my personal dr wouldn't charge the $120, but a hospital full of strangers would have. and, it would have been a lot more than $120. and another thing - i don't know if i were uninsured if my dr COULD charge me less than $120. maybe it's a contractual thing, that the insurance won't pay him the $56 unless he really charges the uninsured $120. who would know... probably the insurance comes around to audit. it's like buying furniture - it's marked way up so they can mark it back down. it's all a racket, but what can you do?