Some of you are being completely ridiculous. LICENSED PROFESSIONAL here--- ethical, by law, or I lose those licenses. In other words, HIPPA forbids me to talk about the contents of a patient's chart. The only way I am able to legally do the audit is that the patients AGREED to it. They might not have known that was in the contract when they signed it, but they signed it, allowing me to do that. And, who do you think pays me? The insurance corporations, your benevolent protectors! And by the way, what I do is less invasive than the perusal that ANY other doctor or nurse involved in your care, either by assignment, or by request (Your own doc can have just about any other doc, team of docs, team of RNs, respiratory therapists, Xray techs, Pharmacists, Psychologists, Dieticians, etc., go through your chart just by ordering it. Some of these people don't even need the order to access your information, as long as it's during the normal course of your treatment. In other words, you're all worried about me when there's a whole army of people doing the same thing.
At any rate, YOU ALL are the ones that wanted the capitalists to run healthcare and insurance. You get so bent out of shape over "socialism" and the effects it MIGHT have--- I'm telling you how capitalism does things NOW. As far as the money, I didn't make the rules; I'm just playing the game. And the rules are, the facility has to comply. If the facility refuses, my instructions are not to argue, not to criticize, not to even talk about it--- just make the phone call and then wait. The refusal has always just gone away. Again, I'm nobody important--- that would be the people with the money. People like YOU all gave them that power.
And you can't blame Obama--- I've been doing this since before he was a senator. Others did it before me. It's a capitalism thing.