WOW 🚨 The nonprofit who owns the billing codes used by our medical system and gets paid $300 million per year in royalties ALSO SETS THE PRICE OF MEDICAL SERVICES for those codes
American surgeon “It feels ridiculous because we as healthcare providers have to use those codes according to state and federal government, and the AMA created them, copyrighted them, and charges us, the people that they're representing, to use them.
So let's go one step further.
The CPT code system is meant to be this five-digit code that is a universal language for documenting and reporting for all the things that we do in healthcare back to insurance companies, right and ultimately, that affects reimbursement.
But here's a wrinkle that you might not have known.
The AMA also actually makes a recommendation to the government about a value that's assigned to the CPT codes that they own. That's right. They own the system. They're making money off of that, and then they're also recommending back to CMS and ultimately to insurance companies how much doctors and providers are paid for those codes.
That is quite a lot of power for one organization to hold over the money that's exchanged in this healthcare system.
So they're making that three hundred million dollars a year licensing it, but then they're also influencing what I get paid for everything that I do. Interesting…..”
- US government made using these codes mandatory
- A nonprofit who donates millions to politicians on both sides was able to keep the copyright
- That group collects hundreds of millions a year from the people required to use it
- The same group runs the committee that recommends the dollar values attached to those codes
The people who could change this, our politicians, are being paid off not to change it
This is a racket