Hi! Relatively new to this subreddit, I've just been lurking. I work in patent administration and have a quick question for anyone out there who can help.

Can somebody explain to me how a multiple dependent claim affect an application's total claim count? The attorneys I work for almost always remove any multiple dependencies from the claims, so I don't have much knowledge about this. Is it true that a claim reading "the method according to claims 1 and 2" counts as 2 claims (one claim according to claim 1 and one claim according to claim 2)? Would this then have any effect on any other claims depending on that multiple dependent claim?