Are expensive medical bills accumulating and you can’t seem to get them off your mind? It may be time for professional help. Read on to learn 10 reasons you may want to hire a medical billing advocate and how aJust can help you tackle your medical debt.
What is a Medical Billing Advocate?
A medical billing advocate is an expert who offers the professional service of assisting you with medical bill negotiations. They use years of experience and industry expertise to navigate the complex maze of medical billing in the most efficient way possible. The goal of a medical billing advocate is to help you reduce the costs of your medical bills or, when possible, eliminate them altogether.
What Does a Medical Billing Advocate Do?
Medical billing advocates provide a range of services—everything from guiding you through the process of medical bill negotiation to taking it on themselves. Call on an expert medical billing advocate to examine your medical bills for errors that could mean the difference between an enormous balance and owing nothing at all.
A medical billing advocate can speak on your behalf to medical facilities, billing departments, and your health insurance to find a solution to your medical debt. They can figure out whether or not your health insurance provider should have covered a denied claim, or how an error in documentation resulted in an inflated bill. Even if no errors were made, a medical billing advocate can bargain with the medical facility over rates and lower the amount you owe.
Top 10 Reasons to Hire a Medical Billing Advocate
1. You Don’t Understand Your Bill
Medical bills can be tough to understand because they aren’t written with patients in mind—instead, they feature language that only medical facilities and insurance companies use. Of the entire bill you receive, you might only comprehend the large amount owed at the bottom, which is all you need to know what kind of impact this debt could have on your life!
If you’re scanning your medical bill to try and figure out where the total balance came from, you may have some trouble deciphering procedure codes, recognizing service names, and understanding insurance adjustments. Just because the bill is confusing doesn’t mean that you have to pay the full amount, though.
Hiring a medical billing advocate allows you to learn exactly what you’re being charged for and why. Understanding all the components of your medical bill is the first step in getting it lowered—you may find one small error that makes all the difference!
2. Getting Coverage is Crucial to Your Health
When struggling in the aftermath of a health crisis or dealing with a chronic condition, insurance coverage of your treatments is essential to your health as well as your financial situation. But sometimes your health insurance may deny a request for prior authorization that leaves you with few options for care, or your insurance provider may refuse to cover a medication that will improve your condition.
If you’re relying on insurance coverage in order to take care of your health, you’ll want a medical billing advocate on your side. A professional advocate can fight insurance denials, take over the bill negotiations, and clarify the options available to you. Then, you can move forward and discuss a treatment plan with your doctor that won’t ruin you financially.
3. Your Health Insurance Denied a Claim
Often, large medical bills boil down to two things: medical billing errors and health insurance claim denials. While this isn’t always the case, sometimes healthcare claims are denied in error, leaving you responsible for paying a medical bill in full unless you can fight for an appeal.
Fighting to overturn a health insurance denial means going through your provider’s appeal process, which can involve hours on the phone as you wait on hold to speak to your doctor or insurance company. If you don’t handle the appeal process correctly, you may miss important opportunities to fight for coverage. Hiring a medical billing advocate takes away any doubts when it comes to understanding how the billing and negotiations work.
4. You’re on the Brink of Bankruptcy
Nobody wants to contemplate bankruptcy, but when a medical bill for a service you needed has brought the possibility up, it’s extra stressful. If one bill might just be the difference between you moving forward or losing your house, you want to give yourself the best possible chance at medical bill negotiation success.
That’s when a medical billing advocate comes in handy. They can take a look at all of your documents, hear your story, and then scrutinize all of the details to find a way to save you money. Tasking a medical billing advocate with this process may just be your best chance at avoiding bankruptcy. With something so serious on the line, it’s best to ask for help.
5. You’ve Been Turned Down by Medical Bill Lawyers
If you believed that your health insurance claim was denied wrongfully or there was some other serious error made by the medical facility or insurance, you may have sought help from a lawyer. The thing about an attorney for medical bills, however, is that they won’t always take on your case. Some may even charge you consultation fees before they let you know that they cannot help.
Have you already been turned down by medical bill lawyers? If so, it may be time to take your case to a medical billing advocate, who can negotiate your debt for you without charging you ridiculous hourly fees or putting you through the draining court process.
6. You’re Dealing With a Health Crisis
Sometimes one medical emergency is all it takes to get into medical debt. Maybe you didn’t have insurance when you got in a severe car accident, or you discovered a grave illness and were thrown into intense and expensive treatments. With all the time you spend traveling for medical appointments, recovering from painful procedures, and worrying about your health, the last thing you want on your mind is your medical debt negotiation.
If you’re dealing with a health crisis, offload your medical bill negotiation onto a professional medical billing advocate so you can dedicate your time and energy to your wellbeing and let them take care of the rest.
Need help with medical negotiation debt so you can focus on your health? Call aJust today!
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7. You Have Too Much Else Going On
Modern life is fast-paced, and your work and family responsibilities won’t disappear just because you have a medical bill to negotiate. If you’re so busy that you’re contemplating just paying a large medical bill to make the whole situation go away, it’s time to call a medical billing advocate.
8. You Are Managing Medical Debt for Someone Else
If a loved one has just passed away or you’ve taken over medical bills for an elderly relative, you may suddenly have a lot on your plate. Maybe you weren’t present when the person received medical care, so you have no idea what services they should be billed for. Or perhaps you’re too caught up in grief to tackle medical debt that you’ve inherited suddenly.
Managing medical debt for someone else can be even more complicated than handling it for yourself, so it’s time to call in the big guns. Simply provide an expert medical billing advocate with all the documentation surrounding the treatment and bill, and it’s out of your hands.
9. You’re Stuck in Between the Hospital and Insurance
One of the most infuriating parts of negotiating medical bills is being caught between the hospital and insurance. Maybe the hospital claims that a procedure should be covered but your insurance is denying it, or the insurance insists the hospital used incorrect coding but the hospital says differently. You, as the patient, shouldn’t be stuck in between, receiving conflicting information and not knowing who to believe!
Turn to a medical billing advocate, who can sort out the information from both sides and find you the best path forward out of medical debt.
10. You’ve Already Tried to Negotiate
Another reason to hire a medical billing advocate? Despite your best efforts to lower a medical bill yourself, nothing is working! You may have gone through your insurance’s appeal process, been turned down by medical bill lawyers, or spoken to the hospital about getting a rate reduction, and still owe an amount you can’t afford.
In that case, it’s time to invite in a professional, whose knowledge of the system will help them find the loopholes and errors that you were unable to uncover yourself. Whether you hire a medical billing advocate right off the bat or turn to one as your last resort, seeking help from a professional is definitely worth it.
Why aJust Should Be Your Go-To Medical Billing Advocate
With all of the different medical billing negotiation services out there, it can be hard to know which one to trust. Some advocates may charge hidden fees, or lack the experience necessary to get you a successful outcome.
At aJust, a dedicated team of professionals are waiting to take over your medical bill negotiations. They use a nuanced understanding of the medical billing system along with an efficient, assertive way of tackling negotiations in order to set you up for success. Plus, if they can’t reduce your medical bills, you owe them nothing. That means you have nothing to lose and everything to gain.
