What in the hell is wrong with medical billing?

Indeed over in insurance is the key!

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The issue isn’t with the doctors office or the billers, it’s your insurance carrier.

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The issue could just as easily be due to the doctor's billing.

Thank obama, pelosi, (we have to pass the bill to see what's in it), and traitor mccain (nah nah, thumbs down) for the mess you are dealing with.
Dishonorable mention to all the other POS congressturds who helped it along.

I have to keep records and notes on all the bills I get. I call and ask what they are billing for and they don’t even know. I dont get and charges listed out, just a balance figure.

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The issue could just as easily be due to the doctor's billing.

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Correct. A very large number of bill issues/insurance not paying is because the doctor’s off medical coding and billing is using the wrong codes for procedures.

Sometimes it’s a simple as the doctor’s office using ICD-9 instead of ICD-10. When the insurance company sends it back because ICD-9 doesn’t give enough info, the doctor’s office handles it as a denial and sends the bill to the patient.

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And it takes so long for insurance to figure out what they’re paying that I lose track of everything and end up just paying whatever bills I get

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That’s kind of where I am, but I’ll let them go 1 or 2 notices before even opening them up. Usually I just toss out with the junk mail. It’s aggravating bc I really don’t have time to check up on all of their crap. Most are so vague that you don’t know if you’re being billed for medical services or Tibetan hookers.

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I guess I need to start keeping records of all of this

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You do. They frick up all the time. I catch things multiple times a year.

It's an overly complicated system is the most straightforward answer.

There's many different insurance carriers and within each carriers theres a variety of policies with different deductibles, Co pays, coinsurance etc. There's no way doctors offices to account for all of theses differences outside of collecting the known co pay for the visit.

On top of that, what's being done for the visit isn't known until after the visit. Yeah, you get the office visit charge(e&m) but if youre kid had vaccinations, maybe had a strep test, or labs etc. These are all separate codes(cpts)/charges that will get submitted to insurance that has to be figured out on the backend depending on your deductible(if you have or haven't met it), your coinsurance, and what the contracted rate the doctor, hospital, etc. Afterwhich you get a bill.

There's a reason why administrative costs of delivering Healthcare is one of the main reasons for our high Healthcare costs.

American Medical billing is a pandemic. Its the most disorganized system in the world.