Do you need help paying your medical bills?
After your recent accident, you found yourself with a mountain of medical bills. While you may have a personal injury case against the at-fault party, you must still confront the immediate concern of how to pay for your medical expenses.
Learn your options for getting help to pay for medical treatment. Keep collections agencies off your back while you focus on recovering.
Look for errors
Before you pay any medical bill, no matter if you can easily take care of it, carefully look over it for errors. Ask for an itemized statement, looking it over for inaccurate hospital fees or double-billing. If insurance covered any of your bills, double-check to see that they covered everything they should have. It may surprise you to learn how many medical bills have errors on them, so give yours a careful inspection to make sure you do not pay for someone else’s mistake.
Negotiate your bills
You may be more comfortable paying your (accurate) medical bills in monthly installments on a payment plan. Ask the hospital billing office if they offer this option. Just make sure that any payment plan you accept is interest-free.
Say that your insurance company did not cover your medical treatment. If not, ask the medical care provider if you can pay the insurance rate, which may be lower than the cost for individual payees. Asking for the Medicare price could be another viable option for some.
Ask for financial assistance
If you received treatment at a nonprofit hospital as a low-income patient, you may qualify for financial assistance. Expect to have to show proof of your income for this option. Even if the facility is for-profit, state law may dictate that it must provide patients with financial assistance if they do not voluntarily offer it.
Suffering a serious injury can come with a tide of unexpected dilemmas. Take some of the load off by getting help with medical costs.