MEDICAL BILLS
MANAGE COSTS
Financial Tools
Compare Elective Medical Procedures
1. Know your options for a medical procedure. They can be:
Ambulatory surgery centers, which can be independent or hospital-owned.
Hospitals, which are usually more expensive.
2. Search and compare for costs on different website.
3. Call the surgery center or hospital you have chosen to confirm their pricing. They might just be able to provide the physician’s fee and the medical facility’s fee, but not the final bill, as other fees such as medical supplies, pharmaceuticals, drugs, and other services are unknown in advance. A hospital’s Patient Advocate or a price-transparency officer may be able to help.
4. Ask for the total cost in case you want to pay it for yourself, and the cost for your out-of-pocket expense in case you want to go with the insurance. Also ask if they have a package prices sometimes called “bundled pricing” or “episode pricing” where they bundle up the prices for a procedure making it more cost effective for patients.
5. Ask if the team that will be performing your procedure are all in your insurance’s network.
6. Call the insurance company and ask if your procedure will be covered and what the copay, co-insurance, and deductible will be. They should be able to provide the contracted rate the facility charges the insurance, and how much you would need to pay.
Note of Caution:
It is not enough to check in the internet if your doctor is an in-network provider, as websites are not kept very current, but if this is your only option, then take a screenshot as proof of coverage and email it to yourself, so there is a date attached to the screenshot, this way you can guard yourself from disputes about coverage in case they arise.
resources:
Compare Cost of Procedures
They use crowdsourcing to uncover medical costs.
Provides prices in your area based on insurance’s claims database.
It tells you what is the fair price for a procedure, and what aspects are included in the cost. It also offers cost saving tips.
Shows the average cost of a procedure in FL and nationwide, it provides the procedure’s bundled cost.
Provides estimates of how much providers are paid by insurers.
Post the procedure you are looking for and doctors will submit competitive prices.