Top takeaway: educate yourself and advocate for yourself to avoid paying over-billing.
Did you know that you can advocate for yourself in numerous ways when it comes to both your healthcare coverage and your healthcare costs?
Let’s chat about a few simple steps you can take to achieve this:
- EDUCATE YOURSELF
- The greatest problem that I run into with my clients when it comes to healthcare coverage and costs, is that they are not educated on the options available to them, and they are not educated on the ‘in’s-and-out’ of how the system works.
- Let me say, that not knowing this information is not your fault. This information is not easy to find and is unfortunately not put out there for everyone to access. You don’t know what you don’t know!
- But despite this, you can educate yourself on all things healthcare costs. The easiest way is to work with a knowledgeable agent like myself. My services are free to you, and I can assist you with the best available options both for your coverage and how to handle bills and out-of-pocket costs.
- ADVOCATE FOR YOURSELF
- Advocate for yourself by making use of the services of an agent (as mentioned above) who can advise you on helpful steps to take.
- Advocate for yourself by being aware of over-billing, billing issues, and making use of bill negotiation. (See my previous blogs on this).
- Remember, I am FOR everyone paying their medical bills, but I am AGAINST people being over-billed and landing up paying unnecessarily large amounts for vital health care services.
- Did you know that overbilling in hospitals has gotten to the stage in certain parts of this country where it is actually possible to sue a hospital for overbilling? Obviously, you would need to know concretely what the fair charge for the service should be, and this is where education, assistance from a knowledgeable agent, and advocating for bill negotiation come into play. But, it is in fact something that is occurring in our country, that hospitals can and are being sued for over-billing.
Many of my previous blogs deal with bill negotiation, which is a vital concept to know about, but knowing that you can and should advocate for yourself when it comes to healthcare costs is extremely important.
If you would like to find out more about advocating for yourself and have the necessary information on health care costing, I recommend a fantastic book, “Never Pay the First Bill” by Marshall Allen, which I do not get royalties for promoting, but I do believe in sharing the information in this book to as many people as possible.
If you have any questions please feel free to book a free consultation with me.