re: How do you feel about Nurse Practitioners?

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Apparently not. I always thought the board rooms of hospitals and medical groups were made up of doctors.

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Some hospital system execs are physicians, some are not. Most of the time the CEO will not be a physician.

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Maybe someone can explain to me why a hospital will charge 15k for a procedure then accept 1500 from a large insurance provider for the same procedure.

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It's largely because of a now antiquated system where charges did matter. In the 70s, 80s, and even a bit of the 90s, hospitals and doctors both were paid a % of charges, typically 70-80% and the patient paid a coinsurance % of 10-20%. Hospitals raised their charges to make more money as costs increased and as new technology that cost money was invented. Initially, hospitals would agree to take only 60 or 70% of charges when the insurance signed a contract with them to be "in network." This eventually evolved into hospitals agreeing to take a flat perdiem ($2000 per day for example) or a flat rate for various procedures, similar to Medicare's DRG payment system. Once all the insurance companies started doing this, essentially, charges no longer matter because the only thing that matters is the contracted rate between the insurance company and the hospital.

Clear as mud? That's a very simplified description of what happened gradually over time.