Tag Archives: Medigap

Don’t Pay Those Medical Bills.

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Yes, I said it. Countless times I have run into weary-worn caregivers who are frustrated by the overwhelming cost of care. According to AARP, out-of-pocket (OOP) costs for caregivers can be upwards of twenty percent of a caregiver’s income.

https://www.aarp.org/caregiving/financial-legal/info-2017/out-of-pocket-cost-report.html

And this is only getting worse.

I often find that clients of mine or even those I’m caring for are quick to pay any medical bill that comes to their mailbox. I encourage you to STOP that right now. We in caregiving and Elder healthcare know that there are many documents that come to our door that say: ‘This is Not a Bill.” And yet it looks like a bill, it sounds like a bill and it often has wording that indicates, “your share of expenses.” I’m sure you’ve found, as I have, that with my mother’s generation:”If it’s a bill, you pay it.” Even if it just ‘looks’ like a bill, many seniors will pay it, just to get it off their plate and to do the right thing.

Unquestionably, we should not pay something that says, “This is Not a Bill.” I’ve been able to either take those away, sneak them out of the house, or train my caregivees not to pay them. That has made a significant in-road into this problem. But it is the real bills that can cost you more than you know.

I tell the tale of a bill I received for my brother-in-law from the hospital for $4500.00, after his death. He had excellent health insurance and was ill for many months prior to his death, so this bill seemed far too exorbitant based on what I knew about his insurance. Every month for a year, I received this bill. Every two or three months, after I called to inquire if they had submitted it correctly to insurance, if they had processed the bill, or if they had calculated all the insurance discounts, they would tell me to wait as the bill was still in process. But they continued to send me the bill, even though they were waiting for payment.

I could have paid that bill ten times before it was properly processed. The actual final bill was $0.00. Yes, zero dollars and zero cents. Just try getting back $4500.00 you’ve overpaid because you were hasty to ‘pay’ a bill. And as I alluded to at the beginning of this article, often caregivers pay these bills out of their own pocket. Don’t do that either, if you can help it, ever. That discussion is for another day.

But for now, when you receive a bill, make sure it is correct. Make sure it has been processed both by Medicare and your Medigap policy, if you have one. Make sure you have received all your proper discounts. Don’t ever be afraid to call and question a bill. Never be afraid to wait, just wait and see if the bill has been processed properly. You can and will save yourself money, frustration and maybe even some heartburn.

Then perhaps you can have the last laugh!

“You Just have to Laugh……….”

©2018 Cathy Sikorski

Sometimes You Just Need a Lion on Your Side…….

Caregivers, Humor, , , , , , ,

I called the hospital today. Well, more accurately, I called the hospital billing department. The billing department is no longer in the hospital. The hospital is in Pennsylvania, where I live, and where my loved ones go to the hospital when they have a problem, medically.

The billing department is in Tennessee, where nobody, who goes to my hospital, lives or goes to if they have a problem medically or otherwise. Okay, maybe that ‘s not true, maybe some people go to Tennessee if they have a problem with say, country music, and want to see if it’s them or the music.

By putting the ‘billing department’ in Tennessee, it prevents all of us in Pennsylvania from actually going to the billing department to talk about a problem. That way no one has to discuss these problems face-to-face. So much easier, said no one, ever.

I called Tennessee today, and although the gentlemen was very nice, the problem was apparently unsolvable.

“I want to know if this bill, which started out at $4500 and is now magically down to $500 has been paid? ” I queried, for the third time in three months.

“Well, ma’am let me see. Now before I answer that question, even though you’ve given me the account number, can you give me the address on the bill, the date of birth of the patient, the date of the bill, the services rendered, the patient’s blood type and the name of their cat?” he asked ever so politely.

Okay, he didn’t ask for the blood type or the cat, but why not? My question is, why in heaven’s name do you put an account number on the bill if it means absolutely nothing in terms of information? Do you make more money by keeping me on the phone? Are you tracing the call just to make sure I’m not in Tennessee, but that I stayed in Pennsylvania where I belong?

We do-si-do all around the information, until we’re both exhausted and wish we had taken more square-dancing lessons, and finally, he says:

“Please ignore that bill ma’am the insurance company has agreed to review it.”

“Okay, but I have an estate to settle, so can I assume that the bill will be no more than the $500 you currently are requesting?”

“No, you cannot.”

Here’s where I want to find a cat, maybe a tiger or a lion, and release it into the wilds of Tennessee with the scent of this insurance company on its nose like a barrel of catnip.

“Um……….why would that be?”

“Well, what if the insurance company decides to take back all the payments they already made? Then the bill would be more.”

“Why would they do that?” I asked, “Medicare paid this over a year ago and this has been your fault for not properly submitting the balance to the other Medigap insurance carrier.”

“Well,” he replied, “we don’t know what they will do.”

‘Cause you don’t know what you’re doing……that’s really what I wanted to say.

But since he told me to ignore the bill, I’m gonna’ do just that. Probably forever.

“You Just have to Laugh…..”

©Cathy Sikorski 2016