How does medical billing work?
The medical billing process beings when you first register to see a doctor at a medical facility. There, you will fill out several forms with your contact and insurance information, which will be used for your medical bills. Medical billers, or patient financial service staff members, are in charge of clarifying which services your insurance will cover, which services require a prior authorization, and what percentage of the medical bill you’ll be responsible for. They then work with the medical coding team to put together the documents to submit to your insurance.
Can you negotiate medical bills?
Typically, you can negotiate a medical or hospital bill if you believe that there has been a mistake in the medical billing. Maybe those in charge of the medical billing made an error with your insurance information, or your insurance refused to pay for a service that is included in your EOB (Explanation of Benefits). Negotiating medical bills involves going through the claim and your insurance information to make sure there have been no errors, then speaking with both the medical facility and your insurance company to find a solution. If you don’t want to tackle the stressful process of negotiating medical bills on your own, reach out to learn how aJust can help!
How can you negotiate medical bills?
The first step in how to negotiate medical bills is getting a breakdown of costs in order to understand the individual services you’ve been charged for. Then, you’ll need to figure out whether or not you’re entitled to more coverage. This may mean calling your insurance company to go over what should be included in your plan in search of an insurance adjustment
on a medical bill or speaking to the healthcare facility to dispute charges for care you didn’t receive. You also may seek out help from a lawyer for medical bill negotiation or a medical bill negotiation service. With aJust, you get professional medical bill negotiation without so much as having to lift a finger.
Can you negotiate hospital bills after insurance?
Yes, most medical billing negotiations take place after your insurance has covered their portion of the bill. While, sometimes, errors may occur on the part of the hospital that result in gigantic medical bills, often medical billing issues are the result of your insurance provider’s mistakes. Your insurance may have wrongly denied a claim, which can cause your medical bills to spike unnecessarily. Even if your insurance has denied your claim, however, you can still negotiate for an insurance adjustment on a medical bill.
How long will it take to get a decision on my appeal?
To create your account you will only need basic personal information including name and email address and information from your health insurance card so that we can complete all the required information to file any claim or an appeal.
Is it possible to negotiate medical bills after death?
If your loved one has recently passed on, you may be tasked with dealing with their outstanding medical debt. In the case that you’re unable to negotiate their medical bills, all of their assets will go towards covering their medical debt. In order to negotiate a medical bill after death, you’ll need to be the executor of the deceased’s estate. Then, you can go about the process of negotiating medical bills after death as if it were your own medical debt.
How can you negotiate emergency room bills?
Emergency room bills can add up fast, and not only because the services are often more expensive than preventative care. If you’ve received medical bills from the emergency room that seem way too high for the services you received there, call and get an itemized statement. You may also receive an enormous bill for emergency medical transportation, and therefore need to fight a denied ambulance claim. When you’re looking to negotiate emergency room bills, it’s important to have all the information in order to understand how to proceed.
Does aJust handle emergency room bill negotiation?
Yes! Luckily, the team at aJust are experts at all medical and dental bill negotiations, meaning that they can take a look at your situation and use their knowledge of the complex medical billing system to get your emergency room bill lowered. You simply provide all the information and documentation at your disposal and let aJust handle the medical billing negotiation for you. They’ll make all the phone calls to your insurance and medical facility on your behalf, find out where the hospital billing went wrong, and then negotiate your emergency room bill.
Can aJust help me prepare an appeal letter to an insurance company?
To create your account you will only need basic personal information including name and email address and information from your health insurance card so that we can complete all the required information to file any claim or an appeal.
How can you get help with medical bills?
Because so many factors go into successful medical bill negotiations, it makes sense to seek out help with medical debt. There are organizations that give financial help to those struggling to pay off medical debt, so you may want to speak to your doctor about any funds you might qualify for. When it comes to getting help negotiating medical bills, however, you have options. First, you might hire an attorney for medical bills if you believe that your insurance or the medical facility where you received care violated a law. Another option is to seek out
professional medical bill negotiation. With aJust, getting help is as easy as filling out a two-minute form and providing our team with the medical billing documents!
How much does it cost to get help with medical bills?
If you hire a lawyer, you will pay hourly fees (on average $100-$300 an hour), plus a fraction of any settlement you get in court. When using a professional medical bill negotiation service, often you’ll need to pay a yearly fee to subscribe to the service plus a percentage of any savings. With some medical debt negotiation services, you will owe the service up to 40% of your savings. This can get a little pricey, which is why aJust only takes 15% of your savings, and only if we are successful in lowering your medical debt.
Do you need a lawyer for medical bill negotiation?
In some situations, you may want to turn to a lawyer for medical bill negotiation. If your insurance denied a claim “in bad faith,” or if you believe that there was medical malpractice at the facility where you received care, you may be entitled to compensation or reimbursement. Lawyers who are professionals at fighting medical bills will be able to tell you if you have a case or not. Just because they take on your case, though, doesn’t mean that you’ll come out of it with any money. When you hire a lawyer you pay them regardless of the outcome, whereas with aJust you only pay when you win, and only 10% of your savings!
When can you get an attorney for medical bills?
You can hire an attorney for medical bills if your insurance provider has denied a claim in bad faith. This means that they refused to cover a service included in your EOB or misrepresented
the coverage available to you. Also, if you think that the hospital or doctor’s office where you received care has broken a law in their medical billing, an attorney may be able to help. In any situation, however, you may have trouble finding a lawyer to take on your case, so you can’t always count on an attorney for medical bills solving your medical debt.
How much do you pay a lawyer for medical bills?
While the exact amount you pay your lawyer depends on their rates in addition to other factors, it’s usually quite expensive. You may pay an hourly rate just for a consultation (often over $100), before the lawyer has even decided whether or not to take your case! Some lawyers may require a lump sum or want to be paid on retainer, when their fees come out of an initial deposit. Plus, if you win your case your lawyer will take a percentage of the winnings as well.
What is professional medical bill negotiation?
Professional medical bill negotiation is an alternative to either hiring a lawyer for medical bills or fighting to lower medical debt yourself. If you need help with medical bills and aren’t sure how to negotiate on your own, you may want to seek out professional medical bill negotiation. Medical debt negotiation services means that you pay someone who knows the system well to advocate on your behalf. These negotiators may be social workers or private companies that exist to help you fight your medical bills. If you want to learn more about professional medical bill negotiation and whether or not it would be right for your situation, reach out to see how aJust works!
When should you use a medical bill negotiation service?
Using a medical bill negotiation service is a great first step towards getting your medical bills lowered. These services help you negotiate with care centers and insurance companies in order to find any errors and get your medical bill to the lowest amount it can be. Any time you are facing a large medical bill that you think is incorrect, ask a medical bill negotiation service like aJust for help. Here at aJust, our team of professionals are your best shot at reducing your medical debt. Plus, if you don’t win your case, you pay nothing!
Can aJust help negotiate medical bills?
Yes! aJust is here just for that purpose. There is no need to take on the stressful and confusing process of medical debt negotiation when aJust can handle it for you. Once you’ve provided all the information you have on your claim and bill, aJust team members will use their professional knowledge of the medical billing system to find where your medical or hospital bill went wrong and get you coverage for a service you needed. This may include contacting both the medical facility and your insurance on your behalf to figure out why you were charged so much and how to fix it.
How can you lower a medical bill?
You can lower a medical bill by negotiating. Either you personally, or a lawyer or medical bill negotiation service, will figure out exactly what happened in your situation to cause you to receive a medical bill and then find a way to lower it. This may mean fixing basic errors in documentation, fighting for out-of-network coverage, suing insurance for bad faith, or proving
that a service you received was medically necessary, and therefore should be covered by insurance. You can also lower a medical bill by searching for organizations that offer funding to patients like you. The easiest way to lower a medical bill, however, is getting negotiation help from aJust.
How long do you have to pay hospital bills?
One of the toughest realities about hospital bills is that most medical bills are due within just 30 days of receiving them. In some situations, you may be able to speak to the hospital and set up a payment plan that spans months or years. The key with payment plans is that you’ll have to pay some amount of money frequently, or you may end up with your medical bills in collections. Usually you need to have made some payment within about six months in order to avoid this.
What does it mean to have medical bills in collections?
There are thousands of collections agencies in the US. These agencies buy unpaid debt and then track down the debtors to get them to pay. Getting a call from a debt collection agency is a stressful experience, and it often isn’t just one call but dozens of calls and emails that border on harassment. Other than the annoyance and anxiety that comes along with having medical bills in collections, there may be serious consequences, too. Sometimes collections agencies will only allow a grace period of 180 days before reporting your debt to credit bureaus, which can tank your credit.
How can you avoid medical bills in collections?
The best way to avoid medical bills going to collections is to pay regularly and keep in contact with the medical facility. If you set up a payment plan, you can slowly chip away at your debt while keeping the balance out of the hands of collections agencies. Another way to avoid medical bills in collections is to hire a professional medical bill advocate to negotiate your medical bill. That way you will either end up paying nothing or just a nominal fee that you can afford long before your bill is sent to collections. Reach out to aJust, and your best chance at successful medical bill negotiation is just a couple quick steps away.
What can you do about medical debt collection?
Once the medical bill collectors are on your tail they can be hard to get rid of. Since they have taken the risk of buying your debt from the medical facility, they now need to make their purchase worthwhile by getting the sum back from you. Paying your bills or setting up a payment plan may cause the collections agency to back off, but that’s also not financially ideal for you. You can also send the debt collectors a no-contact letter to make sure that they can’t reach out and bother you
What is medical debt forgiveness?
Debt forgiveness happens when the creditor—in this case the medical facility or insurance company—decides to give up on getting payment from you for some or all of your medical bill. While this may sound like a dream come true, the reality is more complicated. First of all, you typically need to report any debt forgiveness to the IRS and pay taxes on the amount as if it
were income. If only part of your debt is forgiven, you may still owe a large sum and need to pay taxes on the forgiven amount as well.
How do you qualify for medical debt forgiveness?
This often depends on the organization or creditor that is doing the forgiving, as they may all have different eligibility requirements. Usually these requirements will cover factors like household income, family size, and medical bill amount. It’s possible that you’ll be more likely to qualify for medical debt forgiveness if you have a disability or health issue that prevents you from working. It’s worth it to do some research and find out your medical debt forgiveness options or turn to a medical debt advocate for help.
How does dental coding work?
Dental coding is the process that the dentist’s office or third party dental coding service uses in order to mark down certain procedures and services on insurance documentation. Any dentist that belongs to the ADA (American Dental Association) uses the same universal dental codes. Each condition or service has its own unique five-digit code that dentists use to indicate exactly what kind of care was given. Then, your insurance company will either cover the claim or not, depending on your insurance plan.
What does dental coding have to do with dental billing?
Dental coding is an essential part of dental billing. Because of the specificity of dental coding, a code that is ever-so-slightly incorrect, or a dental code that doesn’t match a covered service may result in your insurance provider wrongly denying a claim. Because you have no control over the dental coding, you might be caught off guard by a sudden unexpected dental bill. That’s why it’s important, when you received a denied dental claim, to ask the dentist’s office to review the dental coding and check it for errors.
Who are dental billing experts?
Dental billing experts handle all of the billing for dental offices. This includes working with dental coders and dentists to bill insurance companies, sending dental bills to patients, and making sure that the dental offices are properly compensated. These dental billing experts often work for third party companies to manage billing for multiple offices. In addition to working with the dentists, dental hygienists, and dental coders, dental billing experts may speak directly to insurance companies or patients as well. They may also be the ones to send your dental debt to a collections agency if you don’t pay on time.
Is aJust a dental billing expert?
While aJust is not a dental billing expert in that we don’t handle dental bills for offices, we are experts in negotiating dental bills! This means that our team knows how dental coding and dental billing works, as well as the responsibilities of dental insurance companies, in order to understand how to best negotiate down your dental bill. For any dental bill negotiations, you can count on aJust to have your best interests in mind and set you up for success.
How much can you save on your medical bills with aJust?
While all types of debt are frustrating and worrisome, medical debt is particularly stressful to take on. If your finances are already teetering on the edge of disaster, receiving a medical bill may just be the worst news you could get. Luckily, with aJust on your side, you can save up to 90% on your medical bills! That’s because our experienced team knows how to negotiate medical bills to lower them or even get them thrown out altogether. And because you only will pay 15%, if your medical debt negotiation is successful, you can get those bills cut down dramatically.