How to Deal with Past Due Medical Bills
The first, and most obvious, action that you should take to deal with past due medical bills is to create a budget. This age old piece of advice is necessary for you to live a financially free life and you should have one already. However, in situations like this there is literally no way to pay off your past due medical bills without knowing exactly what your base income and expenses are.
Once you have your budget in place, see about getting an itemized list of your past due medical bills. Make sure that you were only charged for the services that were actually given to you during care. Do not trust the hospitals accounting office. After you have looked over your bills, give the hospital a call and try to negotiate to lower the cost of your bills. The important thing to stress in these situations is that you are very eager to pay for the services provided for you and that you really need their cooperation in order to get the medicals bills paid off. The hospital will be willing to work with you in situations like these.
If the hospital won't lower the price try to get them to turn your bills into a payment plan. If you have your budget handy, you will be able to know exactly what you will be able to afford each month and the hospital should be more than willing to accommodate you rather than having you crushed under the debt of your past due medical bills without being able to pay much at all.
Once you have a payment plan and budget the only step left is to keep disciplined about making the payments until the hospital bills are finally paid off. This will be straining and will affect your lifestyle but it is the reality of the situation.
Source:
http://www.cnn.com/2008/HEALTH/08/28/ep.medical.debt/index.html , CNN
Published by Jim Posey
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1 Comments
Post a CommentAslongasIpaysomethingeachmonthandthehospitalacceptsit,canthehospitalstillcomeaftermeforthefullamountratherthanacceptingmysmallpaymentseachmonth.