An Obamacare horror story I hadn't heard

[hudebnik]

I spent the last two days at an academic conference upstate, which is (relatively) Trump Country. And I found myself talking to a security guard who was no big fan of either Hillary or Donald, and didn't say whom he had voted for, but told the following first-person story.

"I work mostly as an EMT; the security guard thing is on the side. And since Obamacare, it's been impossible to get paid. After we go on a call, we bill the patient's insurance company, and they just refuse to pay, because under Obamacare, they don't have to. Before Obamacare, they paid just like that <snap>."

Now, I have a hard time believing insurance companies ever "paid just like that <snap>", at least in recent decades. And I confess to knowing nothing about how EMT and paramedic services are now, or have ever been, funded. But for those of you who do know something about it, does the above make any sense? What aspect of Obamacare could have caused (perhaps indirectly) the above phenomenon?

Comments

[metahacker]

Not sure this is directly ACA related, but insurers pay out slower and slower. I seem to recall a regulation about it, but probably at the state level?

None of what he said makes sense, though. People don't work for free long term.

[hudebnik]

I assume he doesn't mean they don't get paid at all, just that the rate of non-payment and delayed payment is significantly higher than it was before. People can live with that long term by charging more on the occasions when they do get paid.

[siderea]

Huh. Nope, I haven't a clue. If there is some change specific to Obamacare, I probably wouldn't know about it because it would probably have also been a part of Romneycare, and Romneycare came in before I became a medical professional. I don't know how it was Before.

ETA: Though thinking about it, if it were something impacting mental health professionals, I think I would have heard somebody complain about it. Heaven knows, I pay more attention to old therapists complaining about billing issues over the last four decades than just about anybody.