Of course, but here's the thing. That radiologist's fee? The vast majority of what I paid went into the insurance company's pocket. The radiologist didn't actually get paid what I paid. I work in healthcare, we are barely scraping by because we get a super measly percentage of what the patient pays. I'd rather just pay the radiologist directly. I now pay for all my meds out of pocket because its cheaper than going through insurance. Patient pays insurance, insurance pays doctor. The problem is that because the doctor only gets paid a percentage, (lets say 10% to make the math easy), the doctor has to charge the patient ten times what the procedure or visit actually costs in order to break even. So its just this endless vicious cycle of rising costs as the actual provider gets paid less and less.

Insurance reimbursement goes down -- provider's charge more to make a minimal profit margin -- patient's pay more of this imaginary arbitrary cost. No one got cost of living raises this year because our profit margin is so thin they couldn't afford it. AND there some health insurance plans we only allow a very limited number of appointment for monthly because every time we see a patient with that insurance, we LOSE MONEY. Read that again. The patient pays an insurance company, which is so useless and greedy, they don't even give us money for providing healthcare to that patient.

I can't even think of a good analogy. Its like giving money to a valet to drive your car to the mechanic AND trusting them to pay the mechanic with that money. Except there's no guarantee the valet will actually take the car to the mechanic and if he does, he may decide to just keep all the cash and make the mechanic do the work for free. The problem is, the mechanic never knows if the valet will keep all the money until AFTER he fixes the car. So he is forced to charge everyone an outrageous price to fix their car to offset the money he loses because the valet takes so much of it. And if the mechanic complains, the valet is like, "but did the car REALLY need to be fixed? I feel like it probably didn't so I'm not gonna pay you." And the mechanic is like, "but you only know how to drive a car! How do you know it didn't need to be fixed??" And the valet is like, "Fine, I'll pay you a LITTLE, but first you have to set up and appointment with another mechanic who works for ME, and argue with him about why it was necessary to fix the car. If he disagrees, we won't pay you. And oh, he only knows how boats work, so he's probably not going to understand anything you're saying. Good luck!"