{"id":67791,"date":"2023-10-02T09:13:45","date_gmt":"2023-10-02T13:13:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ifintechworld.com\/news\/are-you-getting-billed-for-medical-bills-youve-already-paid-or-were-covered-by-insurance-here-are-three-ways-you-can-fight-back\/"},"modified":"2023-10-02T09:13:48","modified_gmt":"2023-10-02T13:13:48","slug":"are-you-getting-billed-for-medical-bills-youve-already-paid-or-were-covered-by-insurance-here-are-three-ways-you-can-fight-back","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ifintechworld.com\/?p=67791","title":{"rendered":"Are You Getting Billed For Medical Bills You\u2019ve Already Paid Or Were Covered By Insurance? Here Are Three Ways You Can Fight Back"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Last year, I fought several pitched battles along multiple fronts with health providers and my insurer. I won all of them.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s no surprise that when you get older, you\u2019ll need more medical care and will receive a lot of bills, some of which are in error. According to Kim Blanton, who blogs for The Center for Retirement Research at Boston College (CRRC), \u201cThe stories are harrowing. In complaints to the federal government, retirees describe the costly errors in medical billing that they struggle, often unsuccessfully, to straighten out.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Consumer Financial Protection Bureau reports that unpaid medical bills for people over 65 amounted to $54 billion in 2020 \u2013 a 20% increase over 2019\u2019s unpaid bills.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cToo many of these unpaid bills were charged in error,\u201d Blanton adds \u201cdemanding that retirees pay money they didn\u2019t owe, the agency said. And the amount of unpaid bills they reported in surveys rose in 2020, even though older Americans had lower out-of-pocket expenses because they avoided going to the doctor during the first year of COVID.\u201d<\/p>\n

The one thing to keep in mind is that a providers\u2019 first bill is not gospel. I\u2019ve found that many try to collect before their claim even goes through insurance processing.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe billing errors occur for all kinds of reasons,\u201d Blanton adds, \u201cfrom medical providers\u2019 failure to run charges through an insurer to the more complex system of medical coding required for the health conditions that crop up as people age. Another problem is a lack of coordination between the federal Medicare and federal-state Medicaid programs. People with dual coverage make up 10 percent of the retirees reporting they have unpaid medical debt, even though, in most cases, they should be paying little or no out-of-pocket costs for their care.\u201d<\/p>\n

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How do you protect yourself? Here are three strategies:<\/p>\n