Standard practice now by doctors and hospitals is to massively overbill for services. I had a physical done at Confluence Health a few months ago and my insurance company and I were billed $1,400 for that half hour visit. Even figuring out what they had billed us was challenging as they separated the charges out into multiple bills and different line items on each bill that did not actually say what services were supposedly rendered.
The insurance company already paid all but my $55 copay and an extra $119 they denied as out of network for some reason.
Our whole medical system is built to scam consumers and taxpayers out of the maximum amount possible – 27% of GDP at this point. Doctors and hospitals inflate their bills massively because it gets sent to insurance. If anyone was asked to pay $1,400 at the door for their physical, people would walk out and shop around. But because it is hidden from people by the extra layer of insurance, people generally go along with it unless they are ornery like me and call and argue with them.
Doctors and hospitals need to advertise their charges publicly upfront so people actually know what they are getting roped into. Every other business has to do that, they should too. And they should run it through the insurance computer system at the same time, so the consumers and the insurance company know what they are agreeing to.