The Battle Over Billing Codes

There are two main things that happen when you go to the doctor - you deal with your health concerns and you fill out a small mountain of paperwork.

Best News Feature2012 Third Coast / Richard H. Driehaus Foundation Competition

2012 / Gregory Warner / APM's Marketplace, USA

There are two main things that happen when you go to the doctor - you deal with your health concerns and you fill out a small mountain of paperwork.

Usually that paperwork has a bunch of numbers on it - procedure codes. You probably don't pay much attention to them. But they're at the very heart of the way we do health care in the U.S. because every code has a dollar amount attached.

The Battle Over Billing Codes won the Best News Feature Award in the 2012 Third Coast/Richard H. Driehaus Foundation Competition. The story was produced by Gregory Warner with editor Betsy Streisand for Marketplace.


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