"Liberty Mutual" and other companies that "do all your government paperwork"

[K8-EEE]

OK anybody who watches TV (especially cable news) sees all these mind-boggling"....ask your doctor if..." commercials. (restless leg syndrome?)

I'm curious about the ones that work out patients getting diabetes supplies (or catheters or electric wheelchairs) for medicare patients.

What is the purpose of these places, like the one Wilfred Brimley (big Republican so anti-government healthcare I suppose!)

I mean if medicare funds these things why can't they get them directly from medicare and cut out the middleman?

I know these places have a HUGE ad budget so there must be a lot of $$ in getting between medicare and the patient!

[havocmom]

1. Going direct eliminats lots of chance to perputrate fraud

And fraud is BIG. Take Bill Frist's family's business, for example: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x6190103

[jmowreader]

2. Liberty Mutual buys in huge quantity, therefore getting a cheaper price

I can see a definite use for Liberty Mutual in the government health system: they already have the conduits between the manufacturers and patients set up, and because they work exclusively via mail order they don't have a huge amount of overhead. They'll get bigger when the government system kicks in because they'll also be able to handle the diabetes patients who aren't eligible for Medicare. Since the government is going to handle routing customers to them, they won't need to advertise anymore hence their reimbursements can be lower while maintaining the same profit margin.

Someone's got to do this work, and Liberty Mutual already knows how.