If you are familiar with insurance companies and they way they handle claims, you know that they set up moving targets so they can deny and delay claims on technicalities, especially in regard to more extensive procedures. We had the finest ophthalmic coding staff in the region, and they were trained and retrained periodically, especially when we knew coding requirements by the various carriers were coming down the line.
Nothing in that Act addresses how insurance companies routinely deny and delay claims. The sad and all-too-routine holdups in payments practiced by the insurance companies are friction in health-care, and those holdups cost us a lot of money. They cost the doctors interest, loss of lines of credit, and loss of profit. Also, every dollar denied in legitimate claims has to be made up from other patients. Your health care costs 'way more than it ought to because of the coercive tactics of the insurance companies.
A good friend of mine is an ophthalmic pediatrician, and he went out on his own and started his own practice. Much of his practice is Medicaid patients. His practice is doing well financially, because the public programs don't change coding requirements constantly, so his reimbursements are consistent, unlike doctors who have do deal with patients whose insurance companies play games and withhold payments. His staffing levels are light, and his office manager is not stressed. She is my cousin, and she left the big practice to start up his practice and manage his office. Bill isn't the only doctor around to have publicly (as in letter-to-the-editor public) supported a robust public option. My primary care physician does as well, as does my wife's primary care doc.
This information is apocryphal, so you'll probably reject it out of hand unless you are friends with some doctors who have small private practices. If so, you'll know that it's true, and that many small practices have had to opt out of participating in private insurance plans that are the worst offenders.
