Save on your medical bills?

I wouldn’t say I’ve been in medical debt before, but I’ve definitely had a bill or two that took me a few months to pay off.

Usually, I just call over to the billing department & set up a payment plan and I’m good to go. And maybe I’m naive or too trusting, but I’ve always just assumed that what I got billed by the doctor/hospital is what I owed.

Yesterday, I overheard a guy say that his wife randomly got a $700 check in the mail from one of the local hospitals after they discovered she’d been overcharged.

I’m sorry to say that’s never happened to me.

Apparently, she’s not alone.

According to a recent survey by Lending Tree, 93% of people who’ve tried to negotiate a medical bill either had it reduced to a lesser amount, or dropped altogether!

One out of three people asked for specific things to be removed from their bill.  And 25% of people just asked flat-out for their bill to be lowered.

Also from the survey, Americans with outstanding medical debt owe between $5k & $10,000!

Yikes.

I guess if you owe a lot in medical debt, it pays to call & dispute some of the charges or try to get your bill lowered, along with working out a payment plan.