If you suffer from any chronic illness for long enough you will most likely experience a hospital stay or some hefty medical bills. If you are following along with My SIBO Journey, you will remember that I was hospitalized twice last October. It was scary feeling as if I was on the brink of death, but it was also very scary to receive eight different bills from the hospital, doctors, imaging, etc. months later. These were not menial bills. My patient responsibility totaled $2,167.76, that was after paying $500 in co-pays. I wanted to provide an outline of the steps I took that got my total out of pocket expenses from $2,167.76 to $443.50, which is 80% off what was originally billed to me.
First off, I have an insurance plan under the Affordable Care Act labeled as the Silver Plan. I don’t really think it should matter what type of insurance you have, but I wanted to make sure you had all of the info up front. Additionally, I had not hit my deductible for the year.
So, after sitting with the bills for a month a bit paralyzed, I got up the energy to start tackling this very large mountain in front of me.
The largest bill I had was to the hospital itself for $1,408.09. Yeah, that is a doozy! That number gave me some heart palpitations for sure. I called the number to the billing office that was provided on the bill and asked if they had any programs set up to help reduce hefty medical bills. They said that they could provide payment arrangements, but I pressed further and asked if they could offer any assistance is writing any of the amount off. They said they did have a program to help those making below the guidelines of the Federal Poverty Level. I hesitated because we make more than the poverty level, but I asked them to send me an application anyway.
The application process was very lengthy. I had to provide the last two months of bank statements, our tax return forms, the sums of any retirement funds, the value of our vehicles as well as provide information for the application form itself. It was some leg work and while compiling all of the info, I thought we probably won’t get a discount since we make more then the guidelines, but I kept pressing on.
As I finished compiling the above information, I felt there was something extremely lacking in their application. They did not ask for us to document any debts we had. We sadly have some debt from my illnesses and some unexpected life events. I felt like I wanted to share that with them but there was no place on the form to do so. I ended up writing a hand written letter that explained all of my illnesses, our debt and then I asked for mercy. I thanked them for providing the service and I asked for any mercy they could provide on the bill. I then sent the compiled information off in a timely manner to the address they provided. So for those who are also suffering from any type of illness, you may be rejoiced when you read articles like which of these technological advances improved flu vaccines apex.
I then called all of the other various medical groups from which I had received bills. I asked them if they had a program that could discount my bill. One of them had an interview they did with me immediately on the phone and by the information that I gave cut our bill in half (the highest discount they provide.) With some of the other groups I had to fill out information and fax it over (yes, some of them still think it is 1997.) 🙂
I had not heard back from the hospital in a reasonable amount of time, so I decided to contact them to see if they had reviewed my case. To my utter amazement, they had reviewed my case and discounted my bill by 90%!!!!! I was flabbergasted, in awe and enormously grateful. I immediately was so glad I decided to do all that was required for the application process, even though I felt nothing would probably come from it. It never felt so good to be wrong! The hospital said they had sent a letter informing me of this but I had never received it (I ended up receiving it 2 weeks later!)
I had not heard back from several of the other medical groups. I decided to call them and share the fact that the hospital discounted my bill by 90% and guess what? They said if I faxed that letter over they would also provide the same discount! You better believe that I did that!
After all of my bills were negotiated down, I went from a balance of $2,167.76 to $443.50! Some of the bills were really small, like $5.27 so I just paid it, but others were a couple hundred here or there. For those bigger balances, I decided to set up payment arrangementsto help spread it out. After 3 months, all of the balances were paid in full and I had saved 80% from what was originally billed to me. Can I get a Hallelujah up in here?!
I rarely say this on a post because you’ll do it if you feel so inclined, but please share this article with someone who could use help and guidance navigating steep medical bills. We have social media icons immediately following this post.
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I also want to hear your tips! Have you been able to get your medical bills discounted? How did you go about doing it?
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