Step 4:
Managing the Delivery Costs
Be prepared to be shocked by the
cost of delivery. This is why it’s very
important to have health insurance. If
the delivery is routine, then you can expect around $1000 for the
anesthesiologist and another $15,000 for the hospital delivery charges. If you have insurance, you’ll be dealing with
much smaller bills. If you ignore the
earlier advice I gave you and you stick with your no-insurance employer, then
may God have mercy on your soul. You
just cost yourself a new car. If your
delivery happens to be high-risk, as it was with my first, then you’re facing
much, much larger bills. My daughter was
born six weeks early and required a week in the NICU, and the week leading up
to that my wife spent in the hospital trying to postpone the delivery. The bills before the insurance kicked
in? Over $127,000. That’s a house. Insurance will save your ass, so make sure
you have decent health care.
As soon as you can after the
delivery, contact your insurance company and have your new bundle of joy added
to your health insurance plan. Insurance
companies typically give you a month or less to do this, but do it as soon as
possible to prevent headaches with the billing departments. If you wait too long, you’ll find that you
have to ask each billing department to resubmit the bills to your insurance
company. That sucks. Don’t forget to add your kid to the insurance
plan as soon as possible.
When you receive your bills in
the mail, which is often a few weeks after the delivery, look them over
closely. Make sure you request the
detailed bill from the billing department if your bill only lists one item and a
massive cost. They do this intentionally. There are a ton of hospital errors that incur
more costs, and the only way to detect them is to look over the detailed
billing descriptions closely. This could
save you several hundred more dollars.
You can also call the hospital’s billing department and ask for a
billing audit prior to payment. They can
try to scare you into avoiding this, saying that it may lead to a higher bill,
but do it anyway. Most errors made at the
hospital incur cost on your part; they don’t happen in your
favor. It’s best to eliminate the
erroneous costs as soon as possible.
Once you
have a final bill from each of the departments (hospital, doctor, and
anesthesia), you can now begin to figure out a way to pay them off without
completely flipping your world upside-down.
The hospitals are obligated to work with you to resolve the debt. It’s in their best interest to do so. Call them and first ask them if there is any
way that this bill could be reduced so that it doesn’t impact your new family
so hard. Often, just asking for a
discount will get you a 10 to 20% discount.
Some will even go 30 to 40% if you can pay it off immediately. However, do not pay this bill with a credit
card. Credit cards charge interest. Hospitals do not.
If you
cannot immediately pay the bill in one lump sum, then have a figure in mind
that you can afford to pay (keeping in mind that you have a new baby to provide
for, as well). Let’s say this number is
$50. Ask the billing department to set
up a monthly payment of $50 each month. This part
is critical. If you only ask them to set
up a monthly payment, they are going to try to have you pay it off in three or six
months. That could be a few hundred
bucks each month. Have your number in
mind, and stick to it.
Another
option to help resolve the medical bills would be to explore loan options with
your retirement plan. Most 401(k) plans
allow you to take out a loan (it’s technically your money), as long as you pay
it back with interest (typically around 4.25%).
I did this exact thing with my first daughter. I called the retirement plan up, asked for
the loan on my account, and within a week, I had the money to pay off the
medical bill. I didn’t mind paying it
back with interest since the interest was also going into my account anyway. It was kind of like a forced savings
plan. This ended up costing me $15 per
pay. Not bad.
No comments:
Post a Comment