Part 1 By Kenneth Klein, BCPA and Morgan Kelley-Human Health Advocates Healthcare providers must often obtain approval, referred to as pre-authorization or prior authorization, from the insurance company before certain treatments, procedures, or medications will be covered. Health insurance companies say that this approval is necessary to ensure that the [...]

The next time you’re at your doctor’s office, make sure to request an itemized bill when you leave. Why? You’ll want to scrutinize your doctor’s bill to check for”facility fees,” excess charges which have now become a common practice. The high cost of medical care is common knowledge, but not [...]

It can cost you money if you don’t review it! What is it about insurance that makes us run in fear or hold up our hands in frustration hoping to avoid the issue? Is it the expense… the challenge… or the complexity of insurance? Regardless of how you feel about [...]

Does health insurance terminology seem like a foreign language to you? Does your mind go blank when you hear words like co-pay, deductible, and out-of-pocket expenses? If you’re nodding your head in agreement, welcome to the club. There are many other people like you who are confounded by insurance and [...]

Health insurance provides us with a sense of security. We believe it equips us financially to manage health issues from minor to major medical emergencies. But does insurance really secure and protect us? If you don’t know the extent of your medical coverage or your financial obligations, then your sense of [...]

In the spirit of protecting patients, hospitals began posting their list of charges online in January 2019 (per the Public Health Service Act enacted by the Affordable Care Act). Sounds like a simple thing to do, but consider the numerous services and items hospitals provide: diagnostic procedures, physician consultations, surgeries, [...]

By the time a collection agency contacts you about an overdue medical bill, you might have forgotten about the debt or perhaps even hoped the healthcare provider had overlooked the unpaid account. Unfortunately, financial issues don’t disappear — in fact, they could even get worse. So instead of burying your head [...]

As a way to manage finances, many consumers opt for medical coverage with high deductibles. While the reduced expense of lower insurance premiums helps to maintain a balanced budget, the financial drain of covering costly deductibles and co-pays in a medical crisis could quickly exhaust a savings account. We don’t [...]

Medical bills are an inevitable expense and often times patients are ripped off because of mistakes or errors in the bill itself which they failed to recognize beforehand. It is estimated that more than 80% of medical bills contain errors. Additionally, health insurers routinely deny claims erroneously. This only adds [...]

Lawmakers have placed pressure on healthcare providers and institutions for transparency with medical fees, however, the information posted online by hospitals is difficult to understand. Assessing an approximate cost for procedures, treatment, and hospital stays remains guesswork, which makes it difficult for consumers to calculate medical expenses in advance. For [...]