10 Ways To Save Thousands On Your Health Care

After a car accident left Michelle Katz, a Washington, D.C., nursing student, with persistent back pain and numbness in 1998, she consulted a neurosurgeon, who told her she'd need an operation to repair her slipped disk. Katz, then 26, didn't have health insurance, so she did the only thing she could think of: She negotiated.

Katz offered to pay her surgeon and anesthesiologist a portion up front in exchange for a hefty discount and arranged a payment plan for the rest. When she got her hospital bill, she haggled with the billing department to drop some charges. All told, she ended up paying just half of the original $28,000 estimate.

"Before this, I didn't think you could negotiate with your doctor," says Katz, 35, now a corporate health care consultant and author of Healthcare for Less, which was inspired by her own experience. "But all you have to do is ask."

And ask you should -- repeatedly. In 2007, a family of four covered by a typical preferred provider organization insurance plan (PPO) is expected to receive an average of $14,500 in medical services. If you fit that profile, about $5,100 of that will be your responsibility -- in the form of premiums, co-pays, and deductibles. That's an increase of more than 8 percent over last year, following five straight years in which costs jumped more than 9 percent annually.

With a little research and some hard bargaining, though, you can cut that figure by half or more. Here are 10 ways to get started, along with the savings you can expect.

Read the whole story here.

Comments

[ExPatriot70]

I don't worry about it as I retired to a country in Europe and am able to be on their health care plan for $80 american a month, I am covered for everything. If I have serious illness or accident I will not go bankrupt trying to pay for. Of course liviing here nis not for everyone but it works for me

[leftLibertarian]

2 Ways to Save Thousands on your health care.

1 - Eat healty

2 - Get off your but and exercise.

[dadw5boys]

WORK HAED 40 OR 50 YEARS THEN RETIRE WITH A HOME PAID FOR AND SOME RETIREMENT FUNDS. .

The wife gets sick first and takes most of the Retirement Savings to pay the hospital bill.
The Husbans get sick and finishes off the retirement saving.

Next one get sick forces a mortage on the house.
Hosptials will place a LIEN ON THE HOME is the bill is not paid in full in 30 days.

1 more illness and you lose ther house.

[MemphisBuffalo]

The American system is easy. Don't ever get sick. I know my credit has been destroyed because I made the mistake of getting sick in America. That was more than 10 years ago and I still have no credit score. It just showes no score due to medical bills. Only in America!

[emerywood]

If one is prepared to change physicians, hospitals and labs every time one gets sick, indeed one can try all these bargaining tactics if one doesn't go back anymore. Otherwise, you may not be welcomed in their clinics, labs or even by your own doctor. Still, it is a lot of work for the average patient ---- old, weak and disabled ------- and a lot of phone calls and rejections. Somehow, a total revamp of the health care system is badly needed to find out, for instance, why hospitals, labs and even physicians, charge so much for surgery or hospitalization. Are they doing this to game the insurance companies and Medicare for a higher reimbursement ? and in the process, creating a bill so huge that the patient cannot even imagine, let alone pay off by himself.

[Chicago48]

These are excellent suggestions, esp. using mymedlab.com, which I intend to do from now on. I have to do testing every 3 months and it's becoming expensive.