Simplify Your Medical Bill Format in Word for Security

Medical bill format in word for Security

she's seen Anan the more times that she can count and she can count to 10 she mentioned Mel in every conversation but the moment she actually met Mel she was speechless that's bu Mia find yours at Walt Disney World Resort 5 years 10 months and 2 days that's how long it took to grow the 38 in to ride on Cali River Rapids but the moment the weight finally ended that was pakia Discover it at Walt Disney World Resort ah the most wonderful time of the year although let's be honest around the holidays things really add up but here's the good news only at Verizon you can get a single line for $50 per month when you switch and bring your phone so well ice skating for two is definitely costing more here at Verizon you can save gifts for your third cousins steep a single line with Verizon not so steep a real tree pricey a single line with Verizon less pricey flights to see Mima and Pops those are up a 50 per month single line that's down even a trip to the Atlanta Holiday Market will cost you more but with Verizon you can switch and bring your phone for just $50 per month for a single line on unlimited welcome with autopay plus taxes and fees all this to say during the holiday season when everything is costing more you can get more for Less right now at a local Verizon store $15 monthly promo credits applied over 36 months with a new line on unlimited welcome in times of congestion unlimited 5G 4G LTE may be temporarily slower than other traffic domestic data roaming at 2G speeds additional terms apply episode 470 is episode 230 negotiating medical bills with Dr vergie brigh Ellington Welcome to The Frugal Friends Podcast where you'll learn to save money save money Embrace Simplicity and live a rich life here are your host Jen and [Laughter] Jill welcome to the frle Friends Podcast happy Christmas Eve happy Hanukkah Eve my name is Jen my name is Jill and we are rearing our probably this year our most recommended episode it's the one we personally have told so many people about in the last I guess two years cuz that's when it aired was 2 years ago and it's definitely been the one that we've recommended the most on negotiating medical bills it's such a practical need that we all have faced are currently facing or will face this is one of the episodes that I've recommended to just personal friends of mine I'll be like you don't have to listen to my podcast on an ongoing basis but here's a really helpful one when people have questions about it I just think it's so so tangible useful so we're putting it at the top of the list again so you don't have to dig through the archives but first this episode is brought to you by gold G o l d baby pure unadulterated gold like previous podcast episodes that just crushed and the book that is probably being printed as we speak you know our book buy what you love without going broke if you want all the golden nuggets and even a few golden bricks right at your doorstep in your hands pre-order that book by whatyou lovebook.com there's still time it is the day before Christmas if you want to give yourself a little extra something yourself a gift yes pre-order that book baby and it'll be it'll be to you it releases on the 7th here here's the best gift uh if you pre-order before the 29th so if you're listening to this on the 24th or maybe the 26th on December 29th we are doing a live class for only pre-orders on creating a one-ear meal plan so if you are struggling with food costs if you are a human being then you're definitely going to want to be there for our live class on creating a one a practical doable one-year meal plan and that is exclusive to pre-orders of the book so head to BU whatyou lovebook.com and once you purchase the book that same page is where you would submit your proof of purchase to get access to that live class and then on January 29th 9th we are doing one more on making a one-year spending plan and we are recording those to so if you can't join live but you've pre-ordered the book and you filled out the form on that same website by whatyou lovebook.com you'd still have access to the content so if having a full year meal plan and having a walkthrough of making a full year spending plan feels useful for you this time of year turning into a new year then then at least at least buy the book for that reason both of those things and the book for $25 that feels like a good gift so speaking of saving money uh and ways to lower your expenses medical bills we have done several episodes on negotiating because it is a really effective way to lower what you pay and also increase what you earn uh we've got episode 449 how women can negotiate better with Katherine Valentine and then episode 339 how to negotiate and save lots of money those are two of our most recent negotiation episodes but you can search negotiate Frugal Friends on your podcast player find different episodes also on our website Frugal Friends podcast.com but this is such a great episode full of great facts and tips and I can't wait for you to hear it let's get into it Dr Virgie Welcome to The Frugal Friends podcast it is a honor and pleasure to have you on you know what ladies it is my honor and pleasure and I've been following you guys for a few years I've been on your list serve I'm trying to think of how many years it's been but I know it was like way before the pandemic so when I saw you guys have a podcast I'm like hey the world is small this is awesome life is good so we're just Fanning on each other but mostly we are here to highlight you Dr Virgie your knowledge and experience and what you have to share with our listeners today so thanks for being here and sharing what you know well thank you so much for having me yeah so let's dive in you are an expert on medical billing and medical debt so I know the first thing people will usually get is a surprise charge on their bills that's happened so often how should people handle surprise charges on their medical bills so surprise charge we call surprise billing is actually a formal description There's an actual uh the the term surprise bill or surprise billing refers in actuality to cases in which you have insurance and you go to get Care at a facility and maybe you had the option it was an elective thing and you had a knee surgery had planned or unfortunately if you had an emergency and you go to a facility and you know that they take your insurance when you don't have any choice of the Physicians that are involved with your care physicians that you have no choice in choosing like the ER doc the anesthesiologist the radiologist who reads the X-ray of your broken to determine if your bone is broken if you had the elective surgery they take tissue they send it off anything that's taken from the human body they'll send it off to pathology for a physician to look at it under the microscope to make sure it's not it's always benign meaning non cancerous versus they don't see any cancer cells those are all folks those are all Physicians that you don't have any choice in picking and if they are out of network that means that they'll send you a bill for their whole full retail price and you're stuck with it so this has been an issue because um there are business models there are there's private Equity there are corporations whose business model is to say okay we're going to hire all these docs who you have no choice in picking when you go to the hospital or you need care and we're going to charge them full price which is often tens and tens and and I I can't explain how outrageous the numbers are when they don't take insurance they take no insurances that's their business model and you go in thinking that you've done all of your research to make sure that you're in network with this this facility but they hire Physicians who are not that results in a surprise bill so how do we when we do we have any power over that either before or after yep the great news is as of January 1 of this year a bill was passed it's now federal law where if you have insurance and you go to an inetwork provider and you are given sent a bill by other Physicians that are involved with your care who do not accept your insurance they have to negotiate directly with the insurance company to work out a payment you know work out is it going to be the in network rate that they usually pay are they going to pay a little bit of a premium whatever it is the patient is out of the middle so until now until January 1 um of this year there are a few States that had you know bills were in that state that you could not get a surprise Bill uh well it was illegal in that state to charge uh patients who um you if they're out of network if you charge them out of network um prices but now it's a federal law so that's how you protect yourself you make sure that if you've gotten a bill from you go to get care and you've gotten a bill where it says you know what we're not in network with your provider uh well um with your insurance rather well not my problem anymore as a January 1 2022 you're going to put them in touch then they know this the providers know this they have to deal with your insurance directly and leave the patient out instead of having the patient holding the bag which has been the case for eons until now so if you get that bill if we get that bill in the mail and we realize this we've now listened to Dr Virgie and we know a bill has passed and we're not responsible for this would that just be us reminding the provider of that law and please talk to my insurance company yeah talk to my insurance compan you know they say talk to the hand uh talk to my insurance company I I'm out so you know I I really like to use this as an opportunity to talk about there's a reason why this is the reason why there's only one right way to pay a medical bill and that's because usually unfortunately I would say nine times out of 10 a Medical Care Facility will send you a bill that's not a real Bill and they do that because they know it works we panic and we'll figure out how to pay this off so I'm going to take you through the one right way to pay a medical bill there's three steps and in this process um Jillian we're going to say okay you know what by doing this process of the one right way of paying me medical bill going through the three steps we're not going to get caught by any tricks like surprise billing so it's the one right way to pay a medical bill will protect you from among other things um surprise billing so the one thing you want to do when you get up any medical bill is to look to make sure that it's an accurate or itemized Bill and what I'm calling now a real Bill a real bill has what's called CPT codes CPT codes are just like barcodes when you go into a store every product has a barcode right you take that product you run it through the scanner it'll tell you it'll identify you know some um description of the product and the price that the facility is charging for that particular product same thing with CPT codes every single medical service in the United States has a CPT code and I won't bore you with what CPT stands for there are people who work in the insurance company I know for years and they can't remember what CBT for amazing and you know it has a long name you know Common procedural terminology which is why we don't use we just call it CPT codes I was talking to a radio host a couple of months ago and he says you know what should call it can't pay this that's what CPT just do for that's amazing anyway so oh yeah right so you get um a medical bill and you make sure it has CPT codes at the top you'll see CPT at the top and under it CPT codes are usually like a five-digit number describing a service so that's what you're going to do you're going to first step is call your provider and and get a real bill so what i' I've been talking about this and it's one of those things that's been bugging me this week I'm realizing you know these bills that we often get that consumers the American patient the public gets are just not bills they're kind of like wishful thinking they're like oh maybe they'll pay it if we send them this with no CPT codes and it has a description and that's it you know they think that it's a real bill but it's not so First Step always called to make sure you get a real bill which is um an itemized Bill basically fancy name for a bill with CPT codes and that takes you to the second step when you get that bill with CPT codes you're going to take it and Google the codes to make sure that each of the codes describes the service that you think you got or services that you think you Reed during your stay or during your visit great once you get those codes well will come up as a description awesome and you're making sure that that uh makes sense in terms of what you got making sure you're not getting double bill that kind of thing or bill for something you know that you didn't get then you're going to take those codes and you're going to continue to Google but this time you're going to Google what Medicare pays for each of those codes for each of those services so Medicare is federal government care healthc care and CMS which stands for centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services has a standard list of things that they pay for each CPT code right the thing is is that I consider Medicare the basic flat rate so there are a lot of people who um do this kind of work meaning trying to help people with who are struggling with medical bills educating the American public in terms of medical financial literacy and they say well okay we look this up but we're going to agree to pay two times the Medicare rate that takes us down to step three I disagree I think start at Medicare start at the Medicare price that's the the point where you're going to negotiate don't go straight to negotiation without doing the first two steps because you're being overcharged their retail rates are often 300 to 500% more than what Medicare pays and so when I say you know what I start at the Medicare rate when I say step three that's the number you're going to start when you call back the medical billing department or the patient accounts Department of the facility and say you know what this is what I can afford these are the services I got this is what I'm able to pay I think this is fair from my research and the care that I received now some folks like I was saying um thinks you know think that two times Medicare rate is a good place to start and that's because if you call some of these facilities you're going to get pushed back and the general thought is the general push back is well if everybody paid Medicare rates or paid the Medicare prices we wouldn't be able to stay in business we wouldn't be able to um provide care to everyone um I'm not so sure about that and even so not my problem not my problem if I have a budget which takes me to step three you're going to call back the provider's Office billing department patient accounts office and ask for number one an interest free payment plan that fits your budget and this is really important because people get upset when they think about how long it's going to take them to pay off a bill they said oh my gosh it's going to take me five years seven years 10 years and so what right so the reason why you you make you're going to get probably push back when you call back the department uh billing department and say hey this is what I'm willing to pay you know I need an interest free payment plan they're going to say you know this is a a $10,000 bill and you know you paying us $250 a month is just going to take us forever to pay it off can you do you know we just that's just too that's just too little and this it'll take us too long to get paid um can you do 350 uh no I can only do 250 and the reason why you want to stick with that is because if you make an agreement with the um Care Facility it doesn't get rep reported to Credit Agencies right it's it's blind to it doesn't um impact your credit report at all which is awesome but if you agree to any payment plan and you can't make a payment they will automatically really quickly I'm surprised how fast they do it they'll send it right to collections to debt they'll sell it to a debt collections for pennies on the dollar so you may say okay well why wouldn't they why would they agree to take so little over a long period of time and I say the reasons why you want to stick with your budget when you're calling the facility and talking about the payment plan that you need is because as they say a little bit of something is better than all of nothing right they know it's cheaper to you know to take it you know instead of having to chase you potentially and or have to sell it if they have to chase you long enough for pennies on the dollar you know to a collections agent so those are the three steps for the one right way to pay a medical bill that's so helpful and at the end of the day you have already gone through the first two steps where you are equipped with knowledge you've been able to get rid of any bills or itemized line pieces that you are not actually obligated to pay you've lowered the rate and then if it is still too much for you to be able to pay outright that interest free portion of course none of us like having those payments but if it's interest free that makes a big difference especially as it concerns Health Care things that we need to stay alive we're not just talking about some luxury item exactly it's not Consumer Debt yeah and you know the current um Administration is realizing hey you know what we need to treat it as such medical debt medical bills are not a choice student loans at the end of the day is a choice but you know none of us asked to get here right none of us asked to be born and once we get here we're living creatures and we get sick things happen we have accidents and so it's not Consumer Debt and I'm glad that the administration is trying to teach folks that hey we need to treat medical bills differently than consumer bills cons medical debt different than consumer Deb well and it carries so much anxiety because not only are you managing physical health problems but also financial difficulties too depending on the amount of money that's owed and whether or not insurance is covering it or you're able to pay and so I think we've got a couple of layers here of just receiving a bill that might be overwhelming that we can't really pay but then that can stack up too medical debt as you're describing here and I know even before we got on you were even beginning to talk about preventative measures so talking about preventative but as well as maybe even reactive cuz sometimes we find ourselves there what are some of your tips when we are deep into some medical debt what can be done one of the things you know I I like to you know remind folks about is that you know it's not your fault and and you think that oh my gosh it's scary it's complicated you know I'm screwed what am I going to do I'm going to have to declare bankruptcy I can't pay this and many people have so the first thing I tell folks is that um it's not your fault and yes there are things you can do so yes go through and well let me just say one more thing the reason why we also Panic is because and often panic in addition to all of this is that this happens to us when we're at our most vulnerable when we're sick in pain scared afraid unable to work you know uh whether we have insurance or not uh most of us get over our insurance to our employers if we miss enough work because of the illness or the accident we'll lose our job and therefore for our insurance so that's there's so multiple many reasons why um folks in this country get taken advantage of by the the system this you know uh Health Care industry in our country for-profit healthcare industry in our country so what I tell people number one is to step back and if you're able to pull all of your bills don't ignore the bills you know if you can be ahead of it and call them first the billing department first as I explain and go back and ask for real bills and a real bill has a CPT code the other thing I tell folks is to make sure that you're not confusing a real bill with because that you're not you're not confusing a real bill with if you have insurance an explanation of benefits or an EOB and I've gotten multiple calls and examples of um where folks say I got this bill from my insurance company no you're not going to get a bill from your insurance company what you received is a notice of what they paid and and or what they're saying they're not going to pay and what you're going to be responsible for and you're gonna have to deal with the provider yourself so I make sure that I ask folks to pull out anything that says usually it'll say it right across the front page and subsequent Pages this is not a bill those your eobs your exclamation of benefits so pull that out and then pull out the actual bills that don't have that that's at the top that's not from your insurance company if you have insurance and call the provider ask for the real bill with CPT codes and then if it's less than I tell people this all the time if it's less than six months out from the services that you received you can still go back and apply for financial assistance and in some cases even Medicaid uh depending on the state that you're in you can go back and apply for Medicaid if your income is low enough s for bills that are six months less than six months old so that's one option often we're kind of in between that we're not at the point where we have to say okay you know what I have zero income I need to consider applying for Medicaid most of us are in the position where we've gone to a health care facility that is nonprofit most of the majority of healthc care facilities Hospital Medical Systems in this country are nonprofit and I stopped calling it nonprofit I call it tax exempt because they really have a lot of surplus let's put it that way 65% nonprofit right exactly right so 65% of hospitals in the united states are tax exempt AKA nonprofit and in exchange for the federal law for tax exempt nonprofit status they provide sliding scale income based discounts to the the um the public and the community that they serve so what this means is many bills that you get if you just go to them and say look call up the office and say look this is the research I got the real bill with CPT codes I've researched that this is what I can afford to pay and for how long you call them up and say yeah you know this is what I can do you'd be surprised that although by law they're supposed to make it post it publicly nonprofit facilities that of what the process is to apply for financial aid and a lot of people don't like that term financial aid you know but you know they think of it as Charity Care as different euphemisms right charity care financial assistance financial aid it's all income based discounts and if you have you'd be surprised at the high income you can have if your bill is high enough you may able to get it completely wiped off just based on your income I've seen a bill as little as I think it was like $133,000 I don't mean little but compared to their income the person had like $150,000 gross income uh that they showed on you know their you're going to be asked to show documents and things um and based on their income uh and the bill the bill was so large in relationship to their income the whole thing the whole bill was wiped away wow wow now if you had not right if you had not been aware that you have frights as if you went to a nonprofit facility tax exempt facility yeah you have you have options so just because the majority of healthc care facilities in our country are nonprofit 65% of them this is an option now someone brought something to my attention they say that even for profit facilities have financial assistance programs you know if you don't ask you don't get right so always always ask even if you think it's a bit overhyped AI is suddenly everywhere from self-driving cars to molecular medicine to business efficiency if it's not in your industry yet it is coming fast but AI needs a lot of speed and computing power so how do you compete without cost spiraling out of control time to upgrade to the next generation of the cloud Oracle Cloud infrastructure or oci oci is a blazing fast and secure platform for your infrastructure database and application development plus all your AI and machine learning workloads oci costs 50% less for compute and 80% less for networking so you're saving a pile of money thousands of businesses have already upgraded to oci including MGM Resorts specialized bikes and fireworks AI right now Oracle is offering to cut your current cloud bill in half of you move to oci for new US customers with minimum Financial commitment offer ends December 31st 2024 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you can save gifts for your third cousins steep a single line with Verizon not so steep a real tree pricey a single line with Verizon less pricey flights to see Mima and Pops those are up a $50 per month single line that's down even a trip to the Atlanta Holiday Market will cost you more but with Verizon you can switch and bring your phone for just $50 per month for a single line on unlimited welcome with autopay plus taxes and fees all this to say during the holiday season when everything is costing more you can get more for Less right now at a local Verizon store $15 monthly promo credits applied over 36 months with a new line on unlimited welcome in times of congestion unlimited 5G 4G LTE may be temporarily slower than other traffic domestic data roaming at 2G speeds additional terms apply a few things are standing out to me in what you're describing here first of all knowing what you can pay what of course once you've realized what you are actually responsible for because sometimes they might charge you for things you're not responsible for but then once you figure out this is what I actually owe going to them with a number which is classic negotiation tip for any type of thing that we're trying to negotiate having that number not just going and saying I don't know what can you do and then going from there but also recognizing that this is available to us and there is no shame in pushing for lower rates because you might not actually have to pay that high rate and why why would you if if you're not able to if the organization the company the hospital has ability to give it to you at a discounted rate I think the thing that stands out to me is just the time and energy that all of this takes the knowhow of going through the paperwork of finding the phone numbers of sitting on hold of doing the research and and it's worth it and and we've seen that it's worth it but especially when you might be going through a time that is physically demanding or exhausting and you've got various medical concerns that I think that that's a it's a big deal and and I don't know if there's much that can be said or a magic wand that we can wave over that but Community hopefully someone to sit by your side as you're uh going through all this paperwork but yeah there's there's a couple of layers here yeah um the most difficult about this is that this happens to us this is done to us not by accident just because they know they can get away with it frankly and in addition they know they can get away with it more likely because it's when we're at our most vulnerable you know we're sick we're tired we're scared we're in pain we're grieving you know and and why do they do it well it works it it works I was talking um actually with uh my husband who's um a 35 year law enforcement veteran and you know we talk about you know laws federal laws versus state laws that kind of thing and I said to him I said you know what I've been going through a lot of medical bill mistakes and you going through you know looking at bills and saying well this is a mistake and if you can imagine 80 to 90% of every medical bill and generate in this country has mistakes and if you can imagine they're not going to be in the favor of the patient right they're going to be in the favor of the provider Andor the insurance company I was talking to him and I said you know um it just hit me why should consumers patients be given bills that don't have CPT codes if there is zero insurance company in this country that would ever ever even consider a bill submit it from the provider that doesn't have CPT codes then why do they generate them and send them to the patient why do they SE why do they generate two different kinds of bills one that's not a real bill I call it a summary Bill sometimes they'll call it a detail summary bill it doesn't matter it doesn't have CPT codes it's not a real Bill why generate something separate that you just send the patients if it's not the same thing that you send the insurance companies the insurance companies you always send C if you want to get paid as a provider you're going to send the insurance companies bills with CPT codes right so why do we generate why are why do providers healthare facilities generate bills that have no CPT codes to patients because it works and because by law there's no law requiring them to do it and I thought you know what there needs to be a federal law to um have the same bill that is sent to to insurance companies sent to the patient just so there's no confusion right yeah and my husband's like oh good luck with that virge you know the political climb he says you may be able to do it state by state he says you can start somewhere but I love these are the conversations you're having I with go for it for another day go ahead and try it years down the road you know something else to work on in my spare time right right but it is smart to realize these things because as consumers we don't know we don't see a ton of bills like if you don't work in the healthcare industry you have no idea you know that what CPT codes are or the huge book full of CPT codes like there's so many of them there's three so specific exactly there's more than 300,000 CPT codes and you don't have to remember you don't have to know any of them you just have to know where to find it you you know it's not you know how's it go it's not what you know it's you know who you know right well you know Dr Google you'll take a CPT code and you'll Google it you don't need to remember you don't need to memorize any of them so I use the analogy gen of going to a car mechanic right so your car doesn't work it's not doing something as to do you take it to the mechanic well you don't have to know fancy mechanic words and how the car runs and that kind of thing to know number one what you're able to pay for it right you don't need to know fancy medical words and CPT codes you don't have to have them memorized and know what they are to be able to understand what fits in your budget when you have to pay for your care I know I can go to a car dealership and be like I can't afford a car that's more than $20,000 and they will do you know I they will tell me what I need to compromise on to stay in my budget and it's just not the same with Health Care exactly that's you Jen that's the exact that's the exact analogy I use I say you know what when you go to a car dealership we know personal financial literacy we know that if you're buying a new car old car you are expected to negotiate there's just basic things you're supposed to know and you don't think that well I don't know anything about how cars work I don't know any fancy car terms but I know that I want like a a big car with a big engine so I know I want a V8 we don't you don't have to know how the V8 works and all the little fancy things connected to it to know how much you can afford to pay to stay in your budget to stay in your spending plan for you and your family some of us just want good cup holders that's all I know hey you know what I had to I didn't want to but I had to buy a new car um my my baby my favorite Bella I was diagnosed with a terminal disease so I had to let her go so I had to get a replacement I call her Bella Junior so when I was checking out Bella Jr at the dealership the guy was like Hey and showing me all the features everything he says and it has a sunglass holder for your sunglasses I was like sold done I kept playing with the the little things it's the little things I'm with you I'm with you Julian yes uh so say somebody has a medical debt that's been it's been longer than six months and you know they've already sent it off to collections what is a person's move then um should they you know it's on their credit report how do they get it off their credit report how do they deal with it what's the next what's the move there okay so um this I'm going to talk about the old um number so as of July 1st as of last week it's than a week old uh the three credit reporting agencies um have to they have to wipe off remove and not report any medical bill or debt that's been paid off that's already in collections that was in collections they can't report it anymore once you pay it off it doesn't stay on for seven years like other Consumer Debt it gets wiped off as soon as you pay it off uh the other thing is is that the facilities have to wait now 12 months instead of six months before reporting it to collections or selling it to collections wow so that's awesome news I just wanted to remind us of you know this is something that's new um yeah I had no idea yeah yeah good stuff right yeah so I'm so this next thing to answer your question Jen refers to prior to any bills that um came up before uh July 1 2022 before last week so let you you would do is you really want to call and make sure that you owe that um let me back up if they call you when they call you say Hey you owe this it's in collections you want to make sure you really owe it so they have to prove by law there's a federal law that's been in effect since the late 70s it's called the Fair Debt practices fair debt collection practices act that says that if you get called by a debt collector they have to show send you documentation that you sign for the service or product so you're going to have to you're going to have to go just OG on them just old school and say hey look I don't know anything about that you need to send that to me in writing show me my signature where I agree to pay for this that I I receive the service show me that so if they don't show you that they don't send it to you in writing you don't owe it uh the second thing is okay so let's say they send it to you and you owe it there are credit repair agencies that say you know what you're better off just working with let me back up they're consumer uh journalists and folks that you know have experience in doing this work in in Consumer Debt to say you know what instead of paying it off with the debt collector just work with a com a credit repair service business company um because your credit has already been deed so they suggest you know what maybe you don't even want to pay it off because it's already hit your report your credit report report and and dinged your your credit number um your FICO score so some people suggest doing that um others say you know what work out a a payment plan you negotiate with them and you know they' bought it for pennies so you know they're going to get a little bit of something and again a little bit of something is better than nothing if you found out you did you went through the steps you found out you did owe it you really if you can if you and this is more difficult to do to get the real bill with your signature with CPT codes that that's ideal but if they have a signature from you and it looks like okay yes this documentation I signed for these medical uh these care services H um if you can I go back to step three applying the three steps again if they can't give you CPT codes then you know with the you know the documentation that they have but you think that you really do owe you receive those Services take it down step two what the services you receive what prices Medicare pays for it or you can go up to two times Medicare rate if you're so inclined to start there with your step three negotiation say okay I'm able to do this interest free because they already ding my credit interest free payment plan and it doesn't matter how long long it takes you stay in your budget don't let them wipe out your frankly you know Americans want to we love our nurses and we appreciate our docs you know they save they can save our lives and we're grateful but just because the facility and or the provider saved your life doesn't mean that you should destroy your financial life and give up your life to pay them right so don't give up your don't compromise or risk your ability to get to work the roof over your head so make sure you can make your mortgage you have a budget your spending plan that includes your budget I mean your mortgage or your rent your car payment your ability to get back and forth to work medical bills come last frankly you've got to make sure that you stay with your ability to stay healthy and if you're financially stressed you're going to you're not going to stay healthy so protect your ability to keep a roof over your head your ability to get to and from work pay those bills first and then work out something that you can cover those um that medical debt collections saying that you owe but some people say um if you've already got if it's already gone to collections it's already ding your credit score consider that I'm not an expert in this and I'm not suggesting one or another but some folks say once it's gone to debt uh collectors consider working with a credit repair agency or business just yeah definitely if you're going to go that route make sure it's a non not for-profit like compan oh that's yeah big deal thank you for bringing that up that's that's important so I've heard and I've I've experienced getting like a pay in full discount do you recommend the interest free payment plan over possibly getting a pay in full discount for either a bill or a debt it's up to you once only only only only after you've gone through the three steps if you've done the first two steps sure you know whatever works for you say yeah okay I've done the three steps First Step the I got the CPT codes describing the services that I received number two I took those codes and found out what Medicare pays for those services and so this is a fair price so you go to three okay this is what I'm willing to pay so let's say that um you got sent a bill and this is not unusual you got sent a bill for $10,000 and and you worked out the numbers you know did the three steps the first two steps and you Googled ah actually um Medicare pays you know $33,000 for these Services well you call them back and you say you know what if I pay you in full 3,000 will you take it this is what Medicare pays will you take it if you don't ask you don't get and then if you believe that that's what um you you've done the research um meaning you Googled the CPT codes and what Medicare pays for them then and you believe that the actual Fair number is $3,000 say look this is all I'm willing to pay take it or leave it and you know you'll give me a 70% discount if I pay you in full now yeah for someone at that step two of comparing to Medicare prices where can they go to find that information to go back to the car illustration is there like a healthcare Blue Book actually there is a healthcare Blue Book you can start there but that the healthcare Blue Book um looks at the prices that are paid are charged and paid in that particular region where you live Medicare does a little bit of tweaking based on regions but not a whole lot so I usually tell people to go to healthcare.gov okay is the the big one where I tell people they can start uh their search for the actual prices that um uh Medicare pays for uh certain Services CPT codes Ser Services yeah so that's where having that code comes in handy to actually that's why step one call them you know the first step is easy just a phone call yeah you know you're going to be on hold you know while you're in front of the TV just put the TV on mute in a commercial and call you know just and then watch and then when they come when they pick up you know 10 minutes later 15 20 minutes later however long it is you can put your TV on mute and talk to them and say I need a real bill of CPT codes nice yeah you know what else I need every week it's it's on the same level as this conversation the bill of the week theill of the of the that's right it's time for the best minute of your entire week maybe a baby was born and his name is William maybe you paid off your morgage maybe your car died and you're happy to not have to pay that bill anymore duck Bills Buffalo Bills Bill Clinton this is the Bill of the week Dr Virgie every week we invite um our listeners and our guests to share with us their bill of the week and we as a billing expert we are very excited to hear what your bill is for the week so uh my bill actually I talk about it in my book how to crush medical debt or I call it just Crush medical debt what your doctor wants you know to crush medical debt and I talk about it because it is a subset a great example of what we talked about at the beginning of our conversation which is surprise bills so surprise bills is as I said is when you go to an in network provider and or Hospital facility but they have out of network dots taking care of you providing the service okay so that's a subset of balance billing balance billing is when you go to an in network provider meaning they accept your insurance and they send you a bill for the re I call MSP right as we were talking about Cars full manufacturer retail sticker price they send you a bill for the balance between what their retail their full price by laugh so I don't cry really um they send you a bill for the provider send you a bill for their full price even though they're a network of their provider so let's say that just to keep the math simple say that uh I go get care and the insurance pays $10 for this particular CPT code right this particular service but the provider's full price is $100 so instead of saying oh we're a network we've agreed to accept whatever they pay for their members as payment and full we accept that $10 and it is what it is right they send you a a bill for the balance which is $90 right that is balance billing so the reason why that's important is and we talked about the surprise billing is a as a type of balance billing the reason why that's important is because if you can imagine it's if it's just you know $100 or 200 never say never put just in front of money right if it's just you know $100 or $200 H okay you know it's you're not going to be happy about it but if it's thousands of dollars for the services that's that'll put you in bankruptcy land debt land really quick right so anyway so my medical bill mistake of the week is I went to a hospital for emergency surgery and I got a balance bill they tried to balance Bill me uh they said my I always laugh I I I I really I laugh so I don't cry they sent me a bill uh six months later uh that had one CPT code and the rest was like general you know so it wasn't a real bill because it only had like one CPT code describing you know an impatient stay surgery all this stuff right so I like okay this is this is interesting this is going to be entertaining for me so um they sent me a bill for 300 that said uh well our charges for your surgery and all this and the impatience day uh is $351,000 but he put a second line in that said um this is quote unquote Insurance adjustments slash payments of like 260,000 or something and then it says patient third line patient responsibility and up at the top uh same number patient due you know within like 30 days or something you know low low price of like almost $90,000 right oh my gosh so manageable right we just help you out exactly right so I have to say you know I was I was laughing because I didn't realize you know they're putting one over on the author of what your doctor want you to go to crush medal debt right off Crush medal debt and I was cracking up and I had to I was I was working from home that day and I I had to just let it out I had to talk to someone so I call my best friend and I tell her the story I said I just got a balance bill for $90,000 from this facility that was in network that is in network with my insurance and I'm telling her the story and just cracking up laughing and she finally says you know Virgie you're the only person I know who laughs when everybody else would be curled up in the fetal position in the corner crying and you know I tell this story because it is a perfect example of why we have to educate ourselves we have to have medical financial literacy just basic three steps and it'll save you literally sometimes hundreds of thousands of dollars if I gone back and applied the three steps I would have called the provider asked for CP a real bill with CPT codes for everything and not just like I think they gave me a CPT code for like uh the tissue they took during my surgery and send it to the lab they sent me a CPT code they broke it out with o o services and stay um 351,000 no 3 50,9 you know 900 and then CPT code for lab service pathology service $44 that that was just like hilarious richar so yeah if IID applied you know all three steps to that I would have gotten a real Bill and then I would have figured out that hey when I've gotten the EOB for my insurance that the number they were actually charging me that $90,000 was the same number that they sent the insurance company to pay the insurance company only paid $90,000 probably less but you know they figured like nine times out of 10 it works wow and they were going to I was sent a bill for $90,000 that I didn't owe and they sent the same claim the same bill to the my insurance company so you didn't actually owe any of that no I owed nothing so yeah that's a great question so a year later I was talking to my best friend again about something and I said you know well yeah that's why you know I you know I call myself the lady that got out of paying the $90,000 medical bill and you can too let me show you how and uh she says well Virgie um by the way she says are you didn't pay that right I was like of course not I told you I wasn't going to pay that and she says well are are you sure like it didn't get sent to collections if you checked your credit report your credit number your FICO score I'm like who are you talking to like what was like you're you know you're talking to the author of crush medical debt right I I said you know dude I just refinance my mortgage last month my credit score my FICO score was they said it went down from the month prior um it was now 8:41 and I was like what I mean I missed the snapshot I got a screenshot and sent it to her but apparently the month prior it was 850 so I said there's no they didn't it's a b that's what balance billing is it is kind it's she's a lawyer she won't let me use the word contract fraud but let's say it is um it is not uh it is not in contract you're if they when they send you a balanced bill when they send a balanced bill say the provider send a balance Bill to um members of insurance companies who they contracted with to accept their insurance sending a balance bill is breach of contract yeah I mean recognizing that what is happening here with medical billing is not always ethical and sometimes we think what's illegal is the same thing as it unethical and it's not the same thing thank you so much for saying that I tell folks this all the time Jillian it's like you know what the these insurance companies and the providers know it's immoral and unethical but they also know it's not illegal and they spend a lot of money every year making sure it never becomes illegal and it's your money they're spending EXA lobbyist you know hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars yes ma'am Jen you're thanks to Dr rgie we are one step closer to being educated and armed with knowledge and we don't have to pay that $90,000 medical bill if you all listening have a similar story to getting out of a $9,000 bill I mean definitely call us Frugal Friends podcast.com bill but if it's anything if it's a wrong bill it's a double bill it's a double bill that you like whatever it is right bill give us your bill forfriends podcast.com bill the most wonderful time of the year although let's be honest around the holidays things really add up but here's the good news only at Verizon you can get a single line for $50 per month when you switch and bring your phone so well ice skating for two is definitely costing more here at Verizon you can save gifts for your third cousins steep a single line with Verizon not so steep a real tree pricey a single line with Verizon less pricey flights to see Mima and Pops those are up a $50 per month single line that's down even a trip to the Atlanta Holiday Market will cost you more but with Verizon you can switch and bring your phone for just $50 per month for a single line on unlimited welcome with autopay plus taxes and fees all this to say during the holiday season when everything is costing more you can get more for Less right now at a local Verizon store $15 monthly promo credits applied over 36 months with a new line on unlimited welcome in times of congestion unlimited 5G 4G LTE may be temporarily slower than other traffic domestic data roaming at 2G speeds additional terms apply now it's time for the lightning round the lightning round so we are playing this is a little bit of wait wait don't tell me style uh we're talking about negotiating medical bills and debt uh for the lightning round we want to know what's your best negotiation experience in general it can be medically related but it doesn't have to be uh so Dr Virgie we will let you go first what was your best negotiation my best negotiation is um probably and this this is so nothing to do with medical bills because I just describe my best negotiation saying no I'm not paying any of it yeah this is very funny this will this oh this will be a great story for my book but no you're not getting a dime because you don't owe it nice try but no cigars my brother used to but probably my best negotiation is um being at a tag sale a yard sale and um getting they were giving away or you know selling a plant or something and um I was just talking with them and gave them you know a beautiful smile and they just said hey just take it I was willing to pay 2 I would have PID whatever it was a gorgeous little plant kind of you know a like a small tree kind of thing and they're like oh you know what you've been here before they had a a sale you know prior a couple months prior and I bought something they were like you know what just take it Dr V I don't know if that's negotiating I think that just might be the Beautiful the being beautiful discount that you got I don't know that you had to put in much work for that I would if I could smile and get a discount I would that would be my favorite if I had if I had my old smile you know the uh 12-year-old Virgie smile that wasn't so beautiful um then yeah I'd have to come up with another negotiation I think just being kind so you know um just no negotiation necessary kind and and talking with them and and you know creating relationships so that's my best negotiation negotiation tip is be kind and F like be friend sometimes it doesn't even need to get to the combative stage you just flash a smile and walk home with a free plan yeah so my my husband says that he says you know um when you're at tag sales and yard sales and that kind of thing you know bundle it you know well I bought something already can you throw in this or okay well this how much is this you already have a couple of things in your hand and we just did this this uh past weekend and he says well will you do I think it was like she wanted $3 or $5 or something the third item and he already had two items in his hand that he didn't hadn't asked her about the prices for and he says well will take $10 for all three just like yeah so that's my negotiation tip be kind relationships and um yeah bundle what about for you Jen you love negotiating yes I will say my biggest one has a little bit to do with relationships also slightly stalking uh oh uh you be the judge it was our first house and I wanted that thing so bad and our realtor at the time very much helped us um negotiate but when we got under contract they still had an open house and I went to the open house and I like stocked it and and just made sure that nobody else wanted it and I had talked with the flippers who were also the sellers um and just found things we had in common one of them had went to school with my old boss good old Greg and and I so I just made sure that once the negotiation was like done that I really had it on lock that was that was my favorite negotiation experience and it it ended up being well we had no money at the time we were being kind of forced out of our rental so we had saved nothing so we had to figure out how to get the house with little to no money I mean that's great when your best negotiation is on your biggest asset your biggest expense yeah and we thought we paid more but we actually made out really good being like two kids in their 20s getting this like fully flipped house uh so that was that was my favorite my favorite negotiation experience of Travis's and this is really the best story is that Travis sat on the phone with Sprint for 6 hours one time to end up with two free I phones mhm that's amazing that was money I was time well spent for the money that was saved right but who wants to sit on a phone for six hours yeah but think about it as an hourly rate how much are those two phones worth and divide six into what is he so think about his job what he gets paid you know break it down divide it up his annual salary divide it monthly then you can divide it into his hour rate right and then you know take that number compare it to what two iPhones together at least $700 this just to make the math easy $600 so $600 he saved right or got product Services wor $600 over six hours that was $100 he made $100 an hour yep yep so it's crazy and uh he wouldn't want to do it again but it's it's a story probably I tell the most about negotiating bills and stuff cuz he just I I got home he was on the phone I left for a girls night and came back he was still on the phone it was an early girls night yeah it was it was Mom's clearly I wasn't with you on that girl's night no no uh so yeah it was uh that was that's that's the best negotiation experience it just wasn't my experience wow you learned from it Jill you learn the KNE of the master that's awesome I do learn from the master this was something for both Eric and I we were living in 170 square fet a tiny little trailer camper and working from home like working remotely so you can imagine what that looked like for both of us to be working in 170 square ft so we needed an office space so we were looking at rentals and ended up finding this amazing renovated Barn at a very reasonable rate for us to be able to work there well it was also on lots of acreage and it looked like a perfect place to also Park our RV so we negotiated for them to allow us to park our RV on the property use the barn the renovated Barn for our co-working space for the same price that they were hoping to get out of renting out the the space just like will you let us also live there at no cost and they did and you know what Dr Virgie it might have been some extra Smiles that got us that one long relation renting your office space so why don't you throw in a place for us to live too there you go bundling bundling yes it it was bundling and really they needed someone really specific to be able to rent because they had young kids who were playing in the driveway so they didn't want a company renting who was in and out of the driveway a lot we were really quiet we kept to ourselves it's what allowed us to be able to afford the office space and still live in the trailer so that was probably our best negotiation yeah we'll rent this space from you can we also live here in our RV right next door for no extra cost they were awesome became friends which was great so oh I love it I love these stories Dr Virgie thank you so much for joining us where can people get more from you and get your fantastic book you can go to crushed debt.com and on Thursdays on voice amica.com at 5:00 pm Eastern 2 pm Pacific um you can find me at the ASA doctor what your doctor wants you to know with Dr vergy show awesome yes and definitely check out uh your book Crush medical debt it's available on Amazon and it's going to help so many people really escape the this uh this crushing medical debt so thank you again Dr Virgie now thank you so much for having me it's been so much fun talking with you ladies I really appreciate all you guys do likewise Dr vgy thanks for being here I'm so glad that you got to hear that one and again you you can get more um from Dr Ellington's website Crush medal debt.com um she has we've referred several of our listeners to her that had have had specific questions in the past and she's been so generous in answering those so crush medical.com and yeah I I hope it's it is definitely rough I've recently been in we've both this year been inundated with some medical bills that we have had to navigate and it is crushing mhm yeah but having had recorded this interview I was much more equipped to face some of those things I think we are better off if the medical things can be scheduled like that was my circumstance I had a surgery this past year that I was able to see coming and schedule and ask the questions ahead of time you face some things that were just emergency situations and now you're receiving the bills afterwards but in both scenarios no about asking for CPT codes and breaking down the costs and comparing it to you know what what those things are supposed to cost being as annoying as possible has been my honest my real takeaway is if you are not annoying you don't get heard and I don't yeah I don't want to be annoying uh I want to assume that people are doing the most for me and they just can't they don't have the capacity to so to be as annoying as possible but with kind not to make somebody intentionally not want to help you again my strength based perspective on that is just being persistent yeah well we have different words for the same thing thank you so much for listening we love love love reading your kind reviews uh kind of like this one from Lori T10 it's titled Millennial and teacher friendly happens to be five stars uh it says Jen and Jill have done an incredible job of taking money to iics and making them understandable and applicable for any person of any income I am a teacher who has been struggling with debt payoff and saving and these girls take away the shame of not being financially Savvy and truly feel like I'm just chatting with the most non-judgmental friends I love that that's coming across we're not out here judging or telling you exactly how to do it but hopefully giving you the tools and resources to be able to implement beneficial money decisions that make sense for you so thank you so much l Lori T10 for for those words if you all are listening and you've not left words for us in the form of a rating and review wherever you're listening that'd be so so helpful not only does it provide us more content for every episode that we record because we read them uh during our episodes but it also helps other people find this podcast know whether or not it's right for them so thanks for doing that yeah and we will see see you next time and next year no we'll see you before but we will not see you before the holiday so I hope you have a fantastic holiday tomorrow and if you've already had it I hope it was really special and you can make it even more special by whaty lovebook.com fle friends is produced by Eric serani [Music] [Applause] [Music] okay Jen I had a medical event uh this week where first of all I woke up at 4:50 a.m. oh gosh yeah