Comment by ethbr0

It's a good point and ties in to the broader issue of opaqueness of reporting, especially now that we've empowered self-serve report generation. We can democratize data systems... but documenting them is a whole different level of effort.

> Sure, insurance companies ultimately know what they paid

It came to mind reading the above that a more accurate/useful perspective might be "The insurance companies' system knows what they are paid," but those system may comprise multiple software systems, none of which have data in compatible formats.

Ergo, even though the insurance company "knows" operationally (it can generate a number on request), it might be unable to generate a list of all numbers (effectively: every path through the system).

But that's why mandates work in insurance: if CMS pushes hard enough, eventually the insurers will develop the functionality.