Hi Everyone,
I am responsible for caring for my elderly relative, who is sick and in need of constant attention. As of late, the medical bills and procedures have significantly increased. Unfortunately, I am getting incredibly fatigued and frustrated. On top of all of this, I believe the medical bills of the individual are incorrect and more than what they should be.
I really don't have the time or energy to solve this. I was wondering if anyone knew of a respected company that could accurately find these mistakes and save me much need money.
Thanks
if you have medicare and a PPO the insurance will send you periodic statements. ours comes every month with a summary at the end of the year. It only tells you what was billed, what approved, what Medicare paid and your responsibility.
Your responsibility is what you should be billed by the provider and have to pay.
Read your insurance manual carefully and be aware of the co-pays that are expected often at the time of service.
If you are unfortunate to be private pay (or very rich) you can negotiate the price for procedures before anything is done both with the provider and facility. Paying upfront if you can will save you significant amounts of cash. Last year my medical bills amounted to almost a million dollars but we were billed about $3000 that was for three months in hospital and numerous expensive procedures.
A: all information given to me (or hubby) by the drs' offices/original dx/and xrays or scans
B: all bills as they come in
C: all payment statements as they come in--and then I cross reference those with the original bill---I ALWAYS find errors, always
D: a "calling list" the place I called, the time., date, to whom I spoke, what we spoke about, what they are going to do, what I am going to do and I GET THEIR NAMES!
E: a finalized bill when all the dust has settled.
Plus I will hold on to this for a few years.
Hubby had a liver transplant 10 years go, chemo afterwards for 84 weeks, a stroke, a terrible motorcycle accident, and all the dr visits, hospital visits, etc along with those. Without my enormous notebook of information, we'd be out much more money. I found countless incidents of double billing--improper billing. outrageous billing--since we were private pay out of plan for most of this, we still paid almost $200,000 over time. You betcha I squeezed every penny til it hurt.
I started doing this with a child's simple tonsillectomy. I do it for all things now, even our boring yearly exams. With 5 kids, I couldn't keep track of who'd had what done--and with the transplant--no way could I have carried that info in my brain.
I do not know of anyone who would WILLINGLY take on this task. You'd probably pay more than you owed to unsnarl someone else's medical bills.
Start afresh and don't do more than a couple of hours per day. It's daunting, but doable.
Bottom line is that I have finally found a specific company that can do this time consuming work for myself and help me finally save me money!
It may not seem this answers your question, but I think it addresses the spirit of your question which is: I need to get this done and I'm too tired for a hassle.
The best way to avoid fighting with providers is to call the insurance company and let them know, "on x date I was billed x amount by x provider." They will be able to tell you if you were billed what you should have been, of if you were billed too much. Providers have to bill the contract rate. I hope this helps.
YES YES I also wish there was someone or some company that would dispute medical bills
I was hospitalized recently, and they ordered all of my daily meds from an old list. Two were ones I never received at the hospital. I have since learned they can charge at will for non-prescription meds.
Try to get organized. Talk to the billing department. Make your notes from the phone calls right there on the statement (but not on the portion you may be sending in with a payment). I also always wrote down who I spoke with and tried to speak to that person if I had to call again.
When you see an error, call immediately for a correction or clarification.