Using the word negotiating is actually the wrong word to use. Basically Medicare has based their payment schedule usually on a percentage of the average charges during a time frame. These payments are changed occassionally. At the hospital we would get a list of new allowable charges. Same at the Doctors office. To actually sit down with Doctors, etc and negotiate a price they do not do. So, I conceed, I used the word negotiate when that isn't the right word.

Medicare sets rates based on the average for a given period. In discussing this during siminars the Medicare Instructors also used the words negotiate. I only wish I had kept the note and printed documentation I received from those seminars but quite frankly, it has been years and I am not that concerned that I need to keep crap that long.