Cheaper health care? Don't hold your breath.

With the CMS (Medicare/Medicaid) April 1 deadline looming for attaching NDC codes (drug vendor ID's) to drug orders, I'm reminded of how horrifically complex health care billing is. Did you know that for each human care "transaction" such as a physician exam, intervention, prescription, diagnostic test there are an exponential number of back-end transactions required to comply with an endless stream of regulations?

Health care billing is probably at least as complex as the tax code. Imagine that every time you went to the doctor, you had to complete a form with as many rules as a 1040. Every time, every visit. That is the nature of health care billing; that is what your health care provider has to do in an attempt to get paid for services rendered.

Managing this mountain of regulation requires intelligent, well-paid people. And a lot of them. Billing specialists, revenue specialists, coding specialists, compliance specialists, risk specialists, etc., etc.

Now, I have no problem with employing bright people, but the costs over and above the actual care transaction are enormous.

The irony is that as more people complain about high costs and low accessibility, more regulation is created and the complexity (thus costs) to comply keep going up and up and up.

Oh yeah, the reason CMS wants us to jump through flaming hoops to attach NDC codes to drug orders? So that they can get a rebate from the drug companies. A rebate. Ironic, isn't it?