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Would you like a doctor who insists on payment in full, up front, for medical care? It sounds terrible to those of us who depend on our health insurance companies to pay our bills or delay them for us. But for many people, especially those with no insurance or high deductible insurance, it saves money. They walk into the doctor’s office knowing what it will cost and prepared to pay it.
Health care clinics that take cash only are a growing trend in America. By eliminating the complicated billing practices that insurance requires, doctors are able to cut down on their staff and pass on the savings to their patients. Patients with a high deductible can submit their own receipts to their insurance companies and let the company take care of the paperwork.
It is easy to dismiss this right away if you do have insurance, especially discounted through an employer, but consider how much your insurance costs. If you have a Health Savings Account (HSA) you are putting a good deal of your own money into a pre-tax plan to pay for health care. If you use that same account to pay directly for your medical care, you would probably have enough to cover your normal expenses.
Most flat-rate practitioners are not advocating that patients go without insurance, but they provide a service for those are uninsured or underinsured. With the rising unemployment rate, more and more people fall into this category. Many have to forgo health care because they simply cannot afford health insurance, or they have insurance and can’t afford the deductibles and co-pays.
Some health care practitioners participate in a network like SimpleCare, but some choose to be independent. Some take a combination of insured and uninsured patients. Others serve only cash patients. There is a predetermined fee based on the length of the visit, no matter what the problem is. By eliminating “quantity discounts” for insurance companies, those with no health insurance are no longer at a disadvantage in pricing.
