Thread by @tgiovanetti

Single payer medicine would be a disaster for Americans, for the economy, and for overall public health.

That being said, it's no wonder people like the idea.

We got a voice mail the other day on the home phone from a collection agency about an unpaid medical bill. This made no sense, as we generally don't neglect such things.

This is gonna get reported to your credit report, etc. All over a $48 supposedly unpaid medical bill, for which we could find no history of being billed. No paperwork at all.

Call the medical imaging provider from whom the overdue bill was supposedly from. "Nope, you're all paid up. You don't owe us anything."

More phone calls, more phone tree navigation, more frustration.

Turns out, it was not the medical imaging company. It was the doctor who injected me with iodine tracer in order to do the imaging. Right there, in the imaging office, but billing separately. Except he never billed us. Not once.

Apparently his billing system consists of just turning all his payables over to a collection agency after insurance has processed them, and not bother billing the customer.

As a customer, we are blind to all this, and simply blindsided when we get the collection call.

Thankfully, do entirely to our own proactive efforts, we figured this out and took care of it before a $48 medical bill became a chargeoff that ended up on our credit report.

This is a screwy, screwy way of doing business. Medical billing is a disaster.

When you are provided a medical service at a medical facility, you should get a single, comprehensive bill from that facility for services rendered. Like every other industry and every other type of business in the economy. It should be the facility's job to parcel out the fees.