I'm sure hospitals will all include a "all promises maid by staff are null and void unless documented in writing" waiver if the practice becomes widespread.
Despite all the FUD about health care prices, most states have consumer protection laws that require providers/hospitals to provide estimates for services upon request. Therefore, by law (state by state) the hospitals could not employ the tactic you suggest.
I know this off hand, and don’t have the time but from there you could probably find a few websites that will reference comparable laws for each state, if they exist.
https://www.pcpcc.org/resource/report-card-state-price-trans...
This is just what I could find quickly. There might be better resources on these laws.
Law is an unforgiving beast so you would always want to refer to the source law they cite, and finding case law (much more difficult task) which references said Law and see how it’s applied/interpreted in practice.
What you linked is certainly much more practical for educational/informational purposes.
Recording sure sounds like the lesser evil to me
Where did I say or imply that?
I think it's fully worth it and wouldn't lose sleep over throwing the staff under the bus. If you want to work for an establishment that screws people getting screwed back occasionally is just one of the risks.
Everytime some staff member says "it will be covered we are just doing x, y, z this is covered"
and then you get a bill from the insurance company and the doctor's office says "we THOUGHT it was covered"