Get me out of Medical Bills!

Medical bills can hit anyone unexpectedly especially if someone gets an illness unexpectedly, has a baby and did not plan for it financially, or gets in an accident that wasn’t your fault. However if you have medical bills you are able to get out of the medical bill debt, but how? Let us tell you a few tips and tricks to work with the doctors, hospitals, etc to help you pay off medical bills!

Negotiation

Did we say negotiate? Yes, we did because the hospital wants to get paid. They will negotiate with you! Call the financial department at the hospital and see what payment plan they can do for you so you are able to afford the medical bill. Realistically you will have to pay the medical bill in full, but they will work with you and you will be able to negotiate a reasonable payment for you to pay your bill while not getting behind on other bills. Some hospitals will have you show them how you will make it work and what your plan is to make sure their hospital bill is at the top priority.

10+ years of experience in grocery retail, 3+ years of budgeting meals as a family, and a lover of shopping for life to teach you the tips quick.

Ask for a discount

Most hospitals will give you a discount if you pay your bill in full before you get discharged. We saved 20% by paying our baby hospital bill before we were discharged. It was almost a $1,000 in savings by doing this. To be honest, I did not know this was possible before going to this hospital, but it makes total sense! Hospitals want their payment just like any other business. They are willing to give a discount to get the full payment days before you leave. Even if you have already left, call the financial department and see if they will give you a discount if you pay the bill 100% that day. It is worth asking some hospitals will do it!

If you do pay the hospital before discharge, note that you will still pry get a bill sent to your home. Be sure to call the insurance company and have them call the hospital to ensure everything was processed correctly. We had this happen where we paid over $3,000 at the hospital, and then received a bill for around the same amount 4 weeks later after we left the hospital. We do not want you to double pay! 🙂

Ask for a bill breakdown

Found a mistake in your grocery receipt, because you were charged too much for an item like a box of cereal, cheese, piece of meat, or vegetable. This can happen in your medical bill too, because we are human completing the job. Just like a person changing the tags in the grocery store and makes a mistake on pricing. It can happen in the hospital field as well, even though you do not want to believe it. There are over 80% of errors on medical billing. How can there be errors? The nurse inputs the incorrect medicine they gave, the doctor slates for an MIR, but it reads as a CAT scan instead, or even you asked for an epidural so it is in your chart and you did not receive one. There can be errors because they are human, so before you pay your medical bill ask for a bill breakdown and check for billing mistakes.

Double check your Insurance

Revisit your insurance to ensure you received the full benefit. You want to make sure the hospital bill went through your insurance correctly, and if it did not you can call the insurance company and ask to get it corrected. Most likely, you will get denied the first time so make sure you fight it. Just like I mentioned earlier about human errors at the grocery store or hospital, well insurance companies can make human errors too and cause your bill to be incorrect thus making you pay more to the hospital.

Financial Assistance

Find out if the hospital you attended gives financial assistance, most hospitals will offer this option. It is similar to financial aid assistance for college and many hospitals do offer it. You just have to ask!

Credit Cards

This is not a way to get yourself out of medical bills. Why not? Most credit cards have a huge interest rate, and why would you transfer one debt to another? That is not smart — just call and ask for one of the other options mentioned above. Please do not pay with a credit card your hospital bills, unless you pay it off 100% to get points or cash back.

Lastly, you do not want to ignore your hospital bills. They will go to collection agency and this will then cause people to call you to pay off your bills.

If you want to budget and track your medical expenses yearly. You should purchase the yearly bullet budget tracker this has 4 different areas of the bullet budget tracker. To get yours now and use it to help pay your medical bills, click here.

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Whether it is tiny living with a baby, budgeting to learn to save more/paying off debt, living your best life, and enjoying what God created us for! Life is just beginning!

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