https://www.propublica.org/art...-millions-every-year

Where healthcare insurance is involved, the payment may go from an insurer through a payment processor to the healthcare service provider.

The complain is this: the payment processors take a percentage from the healthcare service providers when electronic fund transfer (EFT) is used, and often don’t allow the healthcare service provider to accept paper check payment to avoid the EFT fees.

A doctor pushed and pushed through FOIA requests and learnt that CMS (Medicare/Medicaid regulator) has essentially given up on regulating the payment processors. The report exposes various traces of lobbying leading up to that result.

According to the article, a behemoth like the VA has been able to stand firm against giving the payment processor any cut, but the smaller healthcare service providers often cannot.

So there you ago, yet another middleman taking a cut from healthcare dollars.