How to dispute medical bills and how to dispute hospital bills are some of the most searched-for topics online, and that’s because the system is broken and so many people feel like they’re being taken advantage of.
Whether it’s an issue of the hospital not communicating with the health insurance, the health insurance not covering a procedure, or an emergency room visit that ends up costing thousands of dollars–all of these things have the potential to surprise you with debt collectors, damage to your credit report, and lead to medical debt.
So how do you dispute medical bills?
Ask for an Itemized Copy of your Medical Bill
Very often we just see the lump sum and it can seem overwhelming. How can an hour at the emergency department cost us $4,000? The surprise medical bills can be helped if we contact the medical institution and ask for an itemized bill for services.
When you get an itemized bill, don’t be surprised to find mistakes. Double billings for things that only happened once. Billing code mistakes. Incorrect tallies.
Make sure you go through it line-by-line. Yes, in an ideal world this shouldn’t have to fall on the patient’s shoulders, but it all-to-often does.
Most Important: Make sure that the itemized bill includes CPT codes. These are medical billing codes, and they are associated with everything that happens in the clinic or hospital.
Before You Pay a Bill, Wait for the Explanation of Benefits
Your health insurance provider should send out an Explanation of Benefits (EOB), usually in a letter, which will say everything they’re going to cover. The insurance company is trying to spend as little money as possible, but there are definitely things that they’re supposed to cover.
Know your health insurance policies, and compare the EOB to the itemized bills and see where things cross over, where there are billing errors, and where your insurance should have covered something and didn’t. Finding these things before you ever send money to the health provider is important.
Once You Have the Itemized Bill, Look Up the CPT Codes
Now that you have the itemized bill, do a Google search for the CPT codes and look specifically for what the Medicare price is for each code. However, a faster way to look up CPT codes and what Medicare pays is by using Crush Medical Debt’s Medical Bill Buster app.
This is the basis of your negotiation with the medical clinic or hospital. This should be the amount that you are willing to pay.
Talk to Your Medical Provider and Negotiate
With the CPT code and Medicare amounts in-hand, you are now armed with the information needed to negotiate with the medical provider. If they’re charging you $7000 but your information says it should be $2500, then show them the information. And make them an offer. The truth is that so many medical bills go to collections that medical providers are quick to make good deals with good terms to get you to pay anything at all. This means a $3000 bill might only cost you $50 a month.
It may surprise you to learn that if you simply talk to your medical provider about a bill that seems too high, they may lower it, sometimes wiping out large percentages of the bill. Often, medical providers will knock off portions of the bill so that you have less of a financial obligation.
Learn more in our blog article, Demystifying Medical Debt: Your Guide To Understanding, Negotiating, And Paying Off Medical Bills.