I Went To The Accts Payable Dept Of The Hospital Yesterday To Pay My Mom's Bill's And Found This....

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17. This Should Start At The Hospital First.....

Consolidate all billing for services incurred throughout the hospital - that means all the services provided in house - like lab, radiology, etc - as well as the MD's that are on staff at the hospital and work in the outpatient offices adjacent to the hospital and any Homecare or Hospice services provided in the system.

So yes - hospitals will still have to have some sort of billing department - but it would be one billing department - not 5 or more as I indicated in my original post. This billing department would then be responsible for dealing with the government - in any accounting functions that would need to be in place if we had a single payer service.

This would simplify the process - in my opinion - for all involved. There is too much over-duplification of such accounting departments now. This is another factor that is costing us more and boosting the dollars spent in healthcare.

Currently - this even is more complicated by the fact that hospitals and their billing departments - be they consolidated or spread out over many departments - have to deal with a multitude of different insurance companies now. Think of the cost associated with that.

One way to think about it is run it like the credit card companies run. There are many providers of services and products that I use and bill on my credit card. At the end of the month - I get one bill from the credit card company and am able to pay it off if I choose to.

So this isn't rocket science. It could be done. Much of what I've seen in dealing on the caregiver side of healthcare is that there is tremendous confusion, lack of communication and duplication of tasks - that if things were consolidated, made into an electronic file - both healthcare delivery and the financial situation would benefit.