Dealing with my dad's bills after a recent hospitalization and I feel completely lost. The EOB makes no sense, there's a charge I'm pretty sure shouldn't be there, and I don't even know where to start.
do i call the hospital billing department? The insurance company? A patient advocate? Has anyone here gone through this and actually gotten a bill reduced or a denial overturned? What actually worked for you?
My boyfriend had $70,000 US bill with his Obamacare Blue Cross 11 day hospitalization for liver problems.
He owed the $70,000. Blue Cross paid the rest.
I called each billing provider:
hospital
doctors
lab companies
I had to call on each individual invoice. I was able to negotiate the $70,000 down to around $11,000. I told them I wanted the lowest cost to close out the invoice if we paid it off now.
He paid off the $11,000 and now owes nothing.
Some providers made him sign a form before I could talk to the Accounts Receivable clerk. Usually the A/R clerk would have to talk to their boss and came back to me with a lower fee to close the invoice.
The only company that would not negotiate with me was the lab company.
Everything is negotiable in US medicine.
If the charge is the hospitals, yes you call their billing department first to find out why that particular charge was made. But doctors and labs charge separately. So those providers you talk to. Insurance cannot help you concerning a charge made by a provider. The insurance company pays for what the provider has billed. I would call them, though, if after talking to the billing department gets you nowhere. They can then research the charge. If on Medicare, they would be the insurance to call. Supplimentals only pay what Medicare allows.
Now if Dad has Medicare Advantage, those are the people you call if you get nowhere with the hospital billing. I had something come up years ago when I had Blue Cross and they ended up taking care of the problem after I tried every avenue to get the problem resolved. I have been there with a doctors office. I had proof and even wrote a letter to the doctor himself. Nothing came of it till I called BC and they threated the billing clerk. Yes, it got resolved.