Patient advocate at hospital

1

Long time Clark Howard listener here. One thing that Clark mention is talking to the Patient advocate at hospitals when you have medical bills that you cannot afford.

However, calling the hospital and talking to customer no service and the financial aid office yielded no one to talk to.

How do we find the patient advocate to have a conversation?
Who should we be speaking with to negotiate a hospital bill?

2

These are some options that I have seen:

  1. Hospital bills frequently contain mistakes. Get an itemized bill and go through it line by line. Dispute any charges that you think are errors before considering negotiating.
  2. It seems that your hospital is not a nonprofit. Nonprofit hospital must provide financial assistance. Some states require all hospitals to offer discounted care to individuals with low income. If your hospital does not have a Patient Advocate, see if a hospital Social Worker can assist you.
  3. Negotiate with the hospital. Determine what amount you can reasonably pay each month.
  4. See if the nonprofit organization Patient Advocate Foundation can help you (patientadvocate.org). They assist if you have certain serious or chronic health conditions.
  5. Consider hiring a Claims Assistance Professional (claims.org)
3

Also verify that they have filed all your insurances. I was hospitalized the last week in February, and all the statements I received except the ER had filed and received reimbursement from both my primary and secondary. But the ER sent me an unexpected bill, and I figured that for some reason they hadn’t been paid by both, so I ignored it. A month later, I received the same bill again, and called. They had not filed with my secondary…did not have the information…yet all the other billings had both, and filed both…it’s like they deliberately screwed up…over $28 and change :roll_eyes: