And pray, who is running this show? The insurance should JUMP at the chance of paying the cheaper option. It’s the doctors who need to pay off their med school debts who must insist on Bulling office visits - the insurance doesn’t profit.
In a private clinic setting, you're correct, it's the doctors making these decisions. In a larger facility, these decisions are taken out of doctors' hands.
On the surface, your logic about insurers would appear to be correct. However, given that they're mandated to spend a certain percentage of their income on healthcare, they're incentivized to pay for more costly procedures. More spending equals more profits, so long as they can continue to pass on the costs to their customers. And the insurers have figured out a basic truth, which is that their customers will dig deep into their pockets and accept all kinds of quality-of-life compromises when the alternative is suffering for themselves and their loved ones.
