And thus how medical practices succeed in defrauding their customers.

I'm happy to go through the pain of recovering every dollar from ripoffs that send "accidental wrong bills" as a business practice.

It's a matter of principle

You and your time and your life are worth far more than you're receiving for your efforts.

If everybody only did what was in there self-interest it's not clear society would even function.

Holding a company to account in a small way is a moral stand, and like all morality, it's inconvenient and doesn't pay off for any individual.

Oh dear. Your conception of morality is not serving you well. Check out Ayn Rand’s Fountainhead.

Would the healthcare providers pay that wage? Quietly paying the protection money gives them incentive to charge more.

But it does not change the fact that you have already wasted a day of your life on this quixotic effort. Along with the months of agitation and aggravation and irritation and anger as this issue percolates 24/7 in the background.

That’s the infuriating thing about it. I suspect the fear of these unexpected parasitic charges in US healthcare is a contributing reason to men’s life expectancy only being 73.5 years.

The hill is to document and report to the state agency that handles it, and at least make it their problem somewhat.

I'm happy to get paid purely in spite instead

Exactly - you do it only for spite, otherwise pay and move on.

But if everyone acted spitefully to the limit of their ability, the entire thing would collapse.