After a hospital stay, it is a good idea to review your bill line by line. There are often errors made and they can be corrected, especially if you approach it in a positive manner. We all have heard the horror stories of $75 aspirins being administered, and it is those stories that cause some distrust in hospitals.
One young nurse recently had an eye opening experience as she was reviewing the bills from her husband’s recent hospital stay. It appears he had been scheduled to be released on a particular day, and that wasn’t communicated somehow, causing him to have to stay an extra day. There were excessive charges for administering medication 7 times per day when it was only prescribed 4 times per day. And then there was the charge for $875 for one item that she knew from her hospital work should have only been around $80. Clerical error. By the time she was finished, she had discovered nearly $7000 of incorrect charges.
So when you receive a hospital bill, it is a good idea to sit down and review it very carefully. If you have questions, sit down with your doctor instead of the hospital billing department. The billing department is clerical by nature, and they don’t always have an accurate history of the care that was actually provided. Make sure you ask questions.
There are other options to help you come to a satisfactory resolution. Most cities have patient advocacy groups available to offer you free advice. They can direct you on what steps you need to take to get things corrected. And your state insurance commissioner can advise you if you need help with your insurance company.
By having health insurance, we want to be taken care of in case we need it. There is no need to be intimidated by a bunch of codes and numbers on the bill. The hospital can tell you in words what all of them mean. Medical bills can be filled with errors, and you certainly don’t want to pay excess charges. Do your homework, and you’ll get the corrections made that you need.
It may seem tough to find affordable individual health insurance, now a days, however there is a solutions. log onto www.individualhealthquotes.com and you can obtain health insurance quotes from multiple companies at one time.
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