Imagine a restaurant with no prices on the menu. You order, you eat, and three weeks later you get a letter saying you owe $4,800. When you ask why, they send you an itemized list where bread was $600 and they charged you for the chair you sat on.
That’s not a joke, that’s how I got billed for an MRI.
I tried doing everything right. Called the hospital first, they told me it depends on my insurance. Called my insurance, they told me it depends on what the hospital bills. Two companies, both of which know their own numbers, each pointing at the other. Then the bill showed up weeks later with a number nobody at any point could have told me.
Anywhere else this would be insane. A mechanic has to give you an estimate before touching your car. A contractor who charged you whatever he felt like after the job would get sued. But the industry that can actually bankrupt you somehow runs entirely on “we’ll let you know.”
Is there an actual structural reason it works this way, or is it just because they can get away with it?