Here is an article in the Bostom Globe about Athenahealth, a medical billing firm that gives a view of the quagmire that is medical billing: ‘…At the heart of the business is a giant, ever-changing database. The Waltham folks collect and decipher the multitude of billing codes and idiosyncratic rules that insurance companies use to pay claims, then track each claim’s path, until the checks are in the mail. Not only are there literally thousands of different codes used to identify medical procedures, and a different number assigned to every doctor by every health plan, but each insurer piles its own peculiarities onto this numeric heap…’