What is a fair price to pay for health care and hospital bills? What if you are a victim of overcharges?

 You may have heard stories of how hospitals charge vastly different prices depending on whether a patient is insured or not and who their insurance company is. You may also have heard that cash payers can negotiate LARGE reductions in prices if they pay cash up front. It's all true and it's all symptomatic of our absurd, unfriendly to consumers health care system. 

In his book Never Pay the First Bill and other ways to fight the health care system and win, author Marshall Allen explains how to shop for hospital prices for elective procedures before hand and how to fight extremely overpriced hospital bills after the fact. Two websites Allen recommends:

HealthCare Bluebook: https://www.healthcarebluebook.com

Explore the quality and cost of healthcare:  search for and compare the quality and cost of nearby providers.

Help lower medical benefits spend and improve the quality of care.

and 

Fair Health Consumer: https://www.fairhealthconsumer.org/

Estimate your healthcare expenses.

Get essential information on costs for thousands of procedures and learn insurance basics.

Search for Medical and Hospital Costs

Search for Dental Costs 

Find cost estimates for common services that you can schedule in advance at hospitals and hospital systems

What if you are facing unreasonable or unaffordable medical bills? There are companies that will help you challenge bills and when they succeed in saving you money they take a percentage of the savings. 

Medliminal https://medliminal.com/ is "Leading the Charge Against Medical Billing Errors"

"Over 90% of medical bills contain overcharges, costing the US an estimated $67 billion. At Medliminal, we specialize in medical cost containment. Our clients get focused and innovative solutions and services that reduce healthcare costs for all payers."

The Leading Edge of Medical Cost Containment:

"Companies and employees are both overspending on healthcare due to billing errors. Medliminal helps all payers identify and negotiate down inflated medical costs."

Medliminal will review charges ahead of payment as well as identifying overcharges and  helping you get reimbursed after payment.

Other resources from Marshall Allen's book: 

 "Paying too much for health care? Use Clinic Price Check to save hundreds to thousands by comparing prices of medical services at local health providers." https://www.clinicpricecheck.com/

National Association of Health Care Advocacy: https://www.nahac.com/ 

Find an Independent Health or Patient Advocate or Care Manager to improve your outcomes from the health care system. https://advoconnection.com/

A Podcast: An Arm and a Leg: A show about the cost of health care that's more entertaining, empowering, and occasionally useful than enraging, and terrifying and depressing.  https://armandalegshow.com/