It’s not the doctor and it’s def not the insurance company (although insurance companies are evil in their own way).

Insurance companies make money from limiting what services they cover for you and by negotiating doctors down into lower rates for the services they do cover; the less money they spend on your services is more profit for them.

The people actually making money and charging obscene amount, are

• facility owners (hospital, clinics, urgent care) who produce nothing, but simply have the capital to own property and start the business
• drug companies that charge thousands percents of profit simply because they can (remember the epi pen scandal?)

The doctor seeing you wants to make a living doing something they enjoy and excel at; the facility owners are who hire people educated in medical coding just to tack on every possible fee they can, stopping just short of fraud.

That ibuprofen they gave you? It really cost less than a dollar to produce, package, and ship to the facility; but because you were inpatient when you swallowed it, well now it’s $35

That doctor that came by while you were sleeping just to glance at your chart without actually consulting or giving any review of care plan? That’s $600 because fuck you

Having worked in healthcare and insurance for 14yrs now, it’s just fucking depressing to see how everything works.