How Not to Go Broke When You Need Medical Attention, With Journalist Dan Weissmann
This week, we speak with investigative journalist and radio producer Dan Weissmann about how to get around all the outrageous health care costs. From unexpected medical bills to endlessly convoluted health insurance plans, we cover it all and reveal amazing cost-saving strategies.
Dan hosts the Hand and Foot podcast, which explores health care costs and how to deal with our imperfect system. Dan has also worked as a staff reporter for Marketplace and WBEZ in Chicago and has received awards for Investigative Journalism, Article Writing, and Production and Radio Leading.
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Highlights from this week’s series
From an interview with Dan Weissmann
How to approach a call to your health insurance company:
The most helpful person I spoke to was a self-defense expert on how to stay cool in times of need because you’re on the phone and trying to negotiate. And it’s very hard. I mean … You pick up the phone nine times out of ten, well, first of all, you wait a very long time, you get angry, you look at your watch and wonder where you should be. And then you end up talking to someone who isn’t going to be very helpful, in part because, for example, they might not know much, perhaps their job is to simply distract you from the phone. It will be extremely frustrating and controllable enough to actually get over it … So I found that the most important thing is to have some kind of strategy … This is the key. And an expert in self-defense, because self-defense is not just punches and kicks, that’s right, it is a kind of training in how to defend yourself in all situations. And she said your strategy, I quote from her, is to remain calm and confident while remaining very assertive and persistent.
Here’s one of the strategies you can take while getting a giant medical bill:
If you were seen in a hospital, you can refer to their charity policy. If it’s a non-profit hospital, they are required by law to have a charitable aid policy that they say we can receive financial aid on a sliding scale. And what’s interesting is, I mean, hospitals everywhere are talking about who is entitled to what care. Some of them are extremely stingy. Some of them make it difficult for you to get a charity policy, and some are more open and more generous. And in some of them, in some places, philanthropic policies include income ranges that you might not have expected.
On the use of “magic words” before signing hospital documents:
“I agree to pay a reasonable fee, twice the Medicare rate.” Medicare pays at rates set by the government. They are generally lower than the BlueCross BlueShield, but this is the standard that the hospital adopts all the time. So you’re saying I’ll pay twice for Medicare? This is a reasonable standard. This is good news … [Me] if you come [come] to a place and they give you a paper form with a paragraph, it’s like, “I agree to pay whatever the hell my insurance doesn’t pay. that you accuse me, ”then cross it out and write the magic words, sign and initialize … They can be like you went to hell. We will not accept this until you do it right. You tried. You took a picture, you wrote on it. I mean, you can also … take a picture for your records, for example, even before you give it to them. Right. As if I made this offer. This is good. This is a step you can take.
To learn more about Dan’s strategies to reduce or prevent health care costs, we recommend listening to the entire episode.