Something you are forgetting is that even with a “5 minute” visit there is much more time spent to document your case, process your insurance claim and the doctor has ongoing liability if you choose to sue him later. They can’t legally charge cash costumers less either thanks to government...
Lawyers demand detailed paper trails of everything. All that costs time and money. If something is missing, the doctor gets to pay dearly for it.
If you want to lower the cost of health care both government and lawyers need to be removed from the process. Bypassing insurance companies would further improve costs - and results.
Yes, I realize 'time' is required to document the visit. What I am hearing is the medical community is moving to 'software' products to chart medical history. And so it actually takes more time than before to chart because the physician is actually the one who has to enter the information.
The software and training, upkeep, and software updates, does not come cheap. I realize costs of doing business is factored in that $155.00 cost. But there are legions that are attached to the health care system that have nothing to do with what care I personally receive, mostly dictated by government as some level.
I thought I did say specifically that I ultimately hold government system creators accountable for the evolution of our health care system.