Looking into payment plans
If you're facing after-insurance charges that you can't pay for all at once, call
the billing office of the doctor or hospital and see whether you can make
some sort of payment arrangement. You may be surprised by just how much
help you receive. We called the hospital about a surgical charge we couldn't
afford to pay, and somehow in the conversation we discovered that we were
eligible for a couple low-income food programs. The billing department wrote
off the entire hospital bill! So don't be afraid to say you're having difficulty
meeting your financial obligations. Doctors and hospitals are often quite will-
ing to accept payment arrangements or make allowances for lower-income
patients.
Coordinating insurance benefits
If you and your spouse both have medical or dental insurance coverage,
be sure to coordinate benefits between your insurance companies for any
medical services. Usually you have a primary insurance carrier that needs to
be billed first; if you or your children are also covered under your spouse's
insurance, be sure the secondary insurance company is billed after the first
insurance has paid its portion. When insurance plans can coordinate benefits
like this, you often don't have to pay much of anything out of pocket.
Finding less-expensive prescriptions
Pharmacy expenses are one of the most difficult medical bills to budget for
in many families. Even with insurance coverage, out-of-pocket expenses can
add up substantially over the course of an extended illness or during several
rounds of drugs. Consider these simple ways to reduce pharmacy costs:
If you can buy a larger amount of medication at once, you may save a bit
of money. Each time you have a prescription filled, the pharmacy adds
administrative charges. By ordering a full month's supply at once, you
can save several service fees for filling the prescription.
Pharmacies really do vary in their price for different medications. Before
you fill your prescription, call several pharmacies and ask how much
your particular prescription costs to fill.
Don't forget to ask your doctor to prescribe the least-expensive or
generic version of your medication.
If you don't have prescription coverage, ask your doctor if equally effec-
tive over-the-counter medications are available.
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