Prognosis
Doctors Are Fed Up With Being Turned Into Debt Collectors
Physicians, hospitals and medical labs are grappling with the rise in high-deductible insurance
This article is for subscribers only.
Doctors, hospitals and medical labs used to be concerned about patients who didn’t have insurance not paying their bills. Now they’re scrambling to get paid by the ones who do have insurance.
For more than a decade, insurers and employers have been shifting the cost of care onto their workers and customers, tamping down premiums by raising patients’ out-of-pocket costs. Last year, almost half of privately insured Americans under age 65 had annual deductibles ranging from $1,300 to as high as $6,550, government data show.