Hospital bills

A trip to the hospital can easily cost you $100 with a good insurance company. And that's just for the visit alone. If you have any services performed the bill can become outrageously ridiculous and finding a way to pay for it can be even harder. Understanding your hospital bill can sometimes make a huge difference in what you end up paying. Just like anything else, hospitals can make errors and being overcharged is a regular occurrence when it comes to hospital billing. So here are some tips to makes sure you're not being overcharged on your hospital bills and some suggestions on how to decrease them as well.

Most common ways that hospitals overcharge
Many hospitals if not all of them are guilty of overcharging patients whether it's an accident or on purpose. There are basically two different ways that hospitals can overcharge patients:

1. Charging for services you never received


2. Clerical errors

Charging for services you never received
Hospitals are notorious for charging patients for services, tests and medications that most patients never received in the first place. A study done of 40,000 hospitals found that 97% of them had made some error in overbilling a patient. Some of the most common ways hospitals can run up your bill are billing for lab tests or x-rays that were never actually done. Charging for oxygen tanks, masks, drugs, or supplies the doctor ordered but never actually used.

Clerical Errors
Making clerical errors is a common mistake that hospitals can make also, after all we're all human right. You could be charged twice for the same test or charged for something that somebody in the same room as you received. These are errors that you need to catch as you look over your bill and can be solved quickly through the billing office at the hospital.

As a patient what can you do about overcharging?
Despite what you may think, there are several things you can do about being overcharged on a hospital bill. Here are some suggestions:


• Read through your bill carefully. Many patients that get a hospital bill in the mail look at the balance they owe and just pay it outright. Many don't take the time to read over what the charges are for and just assume that the hospital won't make a mistake. Read through your hospital bills carefully and make sure that you're only being charged for the services that you had done and nothing more.


•  Double billing. What when you get your hospital bills in the mail that you haven't been double billed. It gets ignored more frequently if you wait to pay off your bills rather than pay them immediately. If you pay your bills on time and then receive another one with the same amount on it, you're more likely to call about it.


•  Check the dates on your bill. Many hospitals will charge you for more days than you actually stayed. For example, insurance companies do not allow hospitals to charge for the discharge day, but many do it anyway.

If you think that you've being overcharge on hospital bills then contact their billing office immediately. Most times the hospital will figure out a way to work things out before it has to go to court. Hospital bills can be a pain but if you take the time to look them over and call them on overcharging they may start to look more carefully at how they bill you.

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Categories: Medical Bills,

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