Yesterday I was at a meeting of a group called Mid York Medical Accounts Management Association, affiliated with a national group called AAHAM; I'm president of the local chapter. The meeting concerned talking about New York state Medicaid and many of the issues regarding proper billing and coding of claims.

At lunch there was myself, the two representatives from Medicaid, and 5 other people who represent their hospitals in leadership positions as it pertains to medical billing. At some point, me being me, I brought up the health care bill, and garnered thoughts about it from this group of people, not necessarily whether we liked all aspects of it, but how they thought it would impact their jobs.

At my table, it was unanimous; having a national health care bill is a good thing. Now there will be fewer people who don't have insurance of some type, which means hospitals will have the opportunity to bring in more money. Sure, they know there will be some issues here and there, just like it is with every other insurance company. However, one thing everyone agreed on is that probably the two best run insurances to get payments from, even if their on the lower end of things, are Medicare and Medicaid. For both programs, they're less inclined to look for reasons not to pay hospitals and physicians, while other insurance companies, regardless of what the top brass tries to tell everyone, are always looking for reasons to hold onto their money.

There are also fewer sneaky provisions with Medicare and Medicare than there are with other insurance companies. The rules are fairly straight forward, and, as I said, sometimes there are issues, but one can never accuse either of hiding regulations from you. Insurance companies will pop something up and when you ask them to point it out in the contract they'll say things like "it's inherent in the spirit of the contract language", or something similar.

It was an interestingly refreshing conversation, probably because it comes from a different point of view entirely. Did any of us believe the bill as it stands now is perfect? Nope. Did any of us ever think there would be such a bill? Nope. Did any of us believe it's unfair to pay more taxes for the right to have health care for more people? Nope.

In other words, looking at the health care bill is all about perspective. Some feel it's taking things away from us. Some feel it's giving us something more. It was nice being in a group that saw it as giving us something more, even if that reason was kind of selfish. Then again, I'm sure those against the bill aren't saying they don't want any more hospitals.