r/HealthInsurance • u/arwenthenoble • 14d ago

Claims/Providers Full office visit co-pay charged for MyChart message

I had a question about a temporary medication I was taking and sent a message via MyChart. The message was only regarding the medication (no other health questions were asked).

I received my EOB and was charged a full $50 co-pay like when I go in person for a visit or have a full video visit. When I looked online, I see in general messaging costs listed as much lower than a visit. Does this mean my insurance doesn’t differentiate a full visit from a brief question in a message? If I had known, I would’ve scheduled an online telehealth visit instead.

I’ve had a lot of medical costs this year and another random $50 stings. I will avoid using MyChart going forward.

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u/UnfoundedDime 14d ago edited 14d ago

You’re not understanding the volume. Let’s take your example, a dozen messages over four years. It’s three messages a year or 0.25 messages a month, multiply that by 2500 patients and you have 625 messages a month. 25 messages per working day to answer using your example of a patient who hardly ever messages.

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u/Living-Target-9355 14d ago

Don’t have 2500 patients. Also, the vast majority of those patients questions are likely things your nursing or administrative staff should never have to ask you questions about before responding.

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u/HeparinBridge 13d ago

77% of US physicians are employees of hospital systems or large corporate entities, where their panel size is literally dictated to them by a non-physician administrator or executive. You are blaming doctors for decisions that politicians you voted for took out of their hands.

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u/Moist-Barber 14d ago

You don’t understand that this is the reality of my job. I’m inundated with messages. This is not a “one-off” thing like it is for patients.

You are wanting bespoke advice over messages; someone has to pay for that to be done.

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u/Heavy_Can8746 13d ago

Sounds like you should just become a primary care physician to show everybody else how it should be done. It is clearly not as hard as they are making it out to be....right?....

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u/psam6 13d ago

lol at “don’t have 2,500 patients” 😂😂😂 Do you really think doctors get much of a say in that? And even if they did cut their panel down to 1,500 patients… then people would just start complaining that it takes a year to get in to see a primary care doctor. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.