Beware of Medical Bills or How I "Saved" $50

"Save a copy of the medical bills you have paid," I often say. "And keep your insurance company's Explanation of Benefits that they send you". 

So I receive a bill for co-pays...a bill for $65.  My co-pays for this doctor were $10 per visit and recently went up to $15 each.  As I looked at all the dates of this bill, I had that feeling:  the "I know I paid most of these already" feeling. But, although I never actually throw away my medical bills, I might as well, for all the hope I had of finding them.

But we live in an electronic age.  So I went to my bank website and looked for that payment.  I don't even remember how I found it but I did.  I had paid it last September (before the last $15 charge), and they had deposited it.  So I called the doctor's office to tell them...and they gave me credit for it.  It was all that simple.  If it hadn't been that simple I would have mailed them a printed copy of the electronic picture of my check.  It would have still been simple.

I just wanted to share this to remind you. Medical office billing is not infallible.  They get busy. They have new people to train. They have turnover.  They change from one medical billing software to another.  There are any number of reasons why they could make a simple mistake.  So it's up to us to keep an eye on those bills.

And if you can't find the paperwork you thought you had, don't be too quick to panic.  Maybe you have a record of that transaction some other place, in some other form.  It's always worth a look.

   

Keeping Papers - EOB's

If you don't have medical insurance, you may want to skip this post. If you do, I hope that unlike me (for years), you've figured out what to do with those notices you get from the insurance company, telling you what they paid, what they didn't pay, what you should owe your doctor...in other words, your "Explanation of Benefits" or "EOB". You never know when you may need them to figure out (or occasionally to question) a bill from a doctor, dentist, or hospital.

I hadn't figured out quite what to do with my EOB's. Never do I throw them away, but I don't know how long it might take me to find the right one if I need it. I kept trying to figure out how to file them. File folders or notebooks? Medical specialty? Or...?

Finally it occurred to me! Why not take an idea away with me from the medical billing office where I used to work. There, they put them in notebooks by date. Of course, they have a whole lot more than I will ever have for a family. So I decided, instead of date, I will use month. Besides annual and occasional visits to other doctors and dentists, we usually have someone going to the chiropractor every month so, for us, doing it by the month does not make too many sections.

I put the most current month in the front, and prepared a few months ahead. So it goes: Dec. 2011, Nov. 2011, Oct. 2011, Sept. 2011, etc., going back for about two years (so far). Of course, I recycle old notebook dividers as much as I can. Do the dividers all match? No. Do I care? Not at all. As long as they do the job, I'm good with it.

If you were fuzzy about what to do with your EOB's, and think this might be an idea, you can, of course, have fun with it and adapt it to your own best filing methods. Notebook or file folders? Manila folders or hanging folders? Pretty notebooks? Colored folders? Monthly or quarterly? What works best for you in other areas of organization? Just do what's comfortable for you.

And if you have a backlog, don't let that discourage you. You can prepare the notebook and start with the next EOB you receive. And then go back through the older ones when you have a few minutes here and a few minutes there. That's my plan.

How do you do it? Do you have you EOB's organized? What method do you use?

If you have health insurance...

Never mind for just a moment the health insurance debate. That's not what I'm talking about here. What I'm talking about is: If you already do have health insurance, how can you avoid pitfalls? (If you don't have insurance, I can only say I'm sorry. I know there are people who manage medical care without it, but it's not my field of expertise.).

Years ago, I remember having insurance but not even giving the details of it a second thought. We had it, it covered anything and everything, and that was that...or so I thought. But then we'd get a bill from the doctor's office. We had entered a world of co-pays, deductibles, in-network benefits and out-of-network benefits.

Later I learned from my mother-in-law about HMO's. When she became involved, Health Maintenance Organizations had just begun and, at that time, she could only choose from a small handful of doctors. Although I think that has changed to where one can usually choose from more doctors, still HMO's often require a referral from the primary care physician in order to visit a specialist. If your insurance requires referrals, please be pro-active in making sure you have the referral - or that your primary doctor gets it to the specialist - before you go to the appointment.

Sometimes your company may change insurance plans. One year we had the same insurance company as the year before, and even the same member number, but the prefix letters that came before our number had changed. At that time I did something that I later thought was really stupid. I threw away the old cards. Fortunately, I was able to obtain a copy from a doctor's office we had visited. Now I have three policies to keep track of for the past three years. And yes, you really can receive a medical bill in 2010 for an office visit or lab test in 2008. (I'm trying to resolve one of those bills right now.) If that happens, you need to know which insurance company to call and your member number (and prefix).

Speaking of resolving issues, please always be kind and patient when you call the insurance company or medical practice. They are real human beings, with their own trials and tribulations, even their own illnesses, who really do want to help you...provided that you treat them with a little respect. And if it turns out you have a bill that you really do need to pay, don't panic. You can often get on a monthly payment plan.

I used to think that I could just make my own payment plan. "You should be happy that I sent you some money" was my unspoken attitude. I even had a doctor who said, "Send us whatever you can, as long as it's once a month." That's fine, if they tell you that. But unless they do, I would definitely call - no matter how annoying it is, or how fearful you might feel about picking up the phone. If you and the practice agree to a payment plan, and you make your payments, then no one will nag you and you won't be sent to collection for a bill and have it adversely affect your credit rating.

If you really, truly feel you can't make the payments they want you to make, you can ask them if you can make smaller payments. If they want larger payments than you feel you can make, then ask them if they have a hardship plan. If they do, you will need to show your income and expenses, but if you qualify, it might help. At a time some years ago when my husband had just started a business, and we had a large deductible to pay on a four day hospitalization, we got our bill cut in half due to hardship. Then I talked them into small payments on what was left. The woman was annoyed at how little I wanted to pay, and warned me that if a payment was late we would be sent to collections...but it was what I was comfortable with at the time. And in a few years, we had the whole bill paid off in spite of financial difficulties at the time.

So, to summarize, I have learned the following over the years:
1) Know what insurance you have. Do you need referrals? Do you have co-pays? Do you have deductibles? How much are they?
2) If you need a referral for a specialist, make sure it gets there before you do (or take it with you).
3) If your insurance changes, keep the previous year's information in a safe place.
4) If you receive a bill stating that the insurance didn't pay for a visit or procedure, try to resolve the issue with the practice and/or insurance company.
5) If you still owe money on a bill, pay it or make arrangements to get on a payment plan. I've found medical people to be better about this than any other business.

May you be blessed with good health, good care, and prosperity.