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| save money on medical bills |
Take charge of medical bills and payments with advice from
Health Briefs TV. Reduce the amount by being your own health care advocate.
Open the envelope that the medical bill arrives in and pull
the invoice out. Scrutinize it. Itemize all charges on the bill and take time
to find out if the cost for each item in it is accurate. Be sure you are not
charged for something you never got. Also, be sure the bill is accurate for you
and your medical procedure, as sometimes patient names and IDs get crossed.
- Call the provider and insist on the itemized bill and a clear understanding for each charge. Request a hold on the bill, which delays the due date until all items have been clearly explained and all charges are accurate.
- Take charge and clear up the common medical billing mistakes:
- Upcoding – charging for a more expensive treatment than what was actually performed.
- Duplicate billing – charging for the same procedure multiple times.
- Unbundling – taking a service which is supposed to be packaged and billing for each item separately that is often higher than the package price.
- Ask for discounts and hardship applications. Health Briefs TV knows that this is a humbling thing to do. But in order to be able to afford to pay the bill without breaking the checking account, it pays to ask.
- Negotiate – Always first try to negotiate a medical bill. Offer to pay a percentage of the whole bill. If that doesn’t work, set up a payment schedule and then set up automatic payments from checking accounts. Be sure to ask if that interest charges do not go up during the payment plan.
- It pays to be your own healthcare advocate. Take charge of medical and insurance bills and perhaps there will be some money saved.
