Take these steps when you get an unexpected or expensive medical bill.
- Contact the sender and request an itemized bill.
- Contact your insurance provider and find out if the sender is in your network. Ask your health insurance provider to explain your bill(s).
- If the bill is from a recent trip to a hospital emergency department contact your state health insurance department to find out the state laws against balance billing. Here’s the link to a list of state insurance regulators from the National Association of Insurance Commissioners: http://www.insurance.naic.org/state_web_map.htm
Many more options for handling unexpected and expensive medical bills are detailed in Lower Your Healthcare Bills and Medical Bill Financial Help.
These options include;
- Finding mistakes.
- Disputing the charges.
- Applying for charitable care.
- Appealing for insurance coverage.
- Negotiating payment discounts and plans.
- Public Funding
There are also free medical bill review and advocacy services available.
Medical bill review company CoPatient put together a step-by-step medical bill payment guide that’s very easy to use. You can also get free help from aPatientsPlace.com experts.