Our medical expenses have been going through the roof. We had lots of visits to our family doctor and pediatrician, as well as specialists last year. Even the cost of our dental care has been increasing at a very high rate. We are trying every way we can to keep our medical expenses as low as possible. Our health insurance is through my husband’s employer, yet we have large deductibles and the co-pays have increased for both in-network providers as well as for prescriptions.
First, we learned to always verify before a visit if the provider is in-network for our insurance. It makes a big difference in the amount we will pay if a provider is out-of-network as the deductible is much larger and the remaining coverage is only 60%.Â
Second, we ask ahead of time if the visit/procedure/test is covered by insurance and how much we will be expected to pay at the time of service. This way we can straighten things out ahead of time, rather than be shocked when a bill comes our way. No longer do I just let the office staff “submit it to insurance” without my knowing what exactly I am going to be expected to pay.Â
Third, we get an itemized receipt at the time of service so that we can dispute any wrong charges right there in the office. I usually let the receptionist know when I check in that I would like an itemized statement when I leave. Since many offices do not work this way, it gives them time to get the statement ready. It is so much easier to correct errors in person and at this stage rather than a month or two later.
Fourth, we are diligent in checking insurance benefit statements. When the statement arrives we reconcile it against the original receipt obtained the day of service. We’ve found many billing errors this way.Â
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2 responses so far ↓
1 Donna // Jan 20, 2007 at 12:07 pm
Have you contributed to your flexible spending account at work? It allows you to pay for your medical expenses using pre-tax dollars (effectively saving you the percentage of your tax rate, i.e., if you are in a 25% tax rate, you save 25% on all medical expenses). I wrote an article about it at my web site, http://www.takingcontrolovermoney. It’s called How to Take Control Over Your Flexible Spending Account and can be found at http://www.takingcontrolovermoney.com/taking_control_over_revenue/how_to_take_advantage_of_yo.html. I’m not trying to plug my own website, I just didn’t know if you knew about how beneficial these plans are. Medical expenses (including premiums!!!!) are outrageous — we figure that premiums, the extra costs and the dentist, etc. could well eat up $10,000.00 per year for a family of 4 (we pay a huge portion of our family premium but our insurance is “paid for” by my husband’s employer). I use my insurance correctly and I still end up finding medications that are not covered or are EXTREME co-pays. And forget the dentist, we have dental insurance through both employers and have yet to find a “good” dentist in the plan. If you go outside of the plan, we get back about 1/4 -1/2 of what we spend. It’s ridiculous. Glasses are the same story — I think the eyeglass places particpate to get the plan people in the door. When they say inflation is not increasing, I don’t think they are taking into account all of this! Thanks for your article, you really got me thinking on this early Saturday a.m.
Donna
2 Too Many Debts » Blog Archive » Welcome to the 83rd Carnival of Personal Finance! // Jan 24, 2007 at 4:28 pm
[...] Not Made of Money shows us how to save on medical expenses [...]
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