If you’re planning to challenge medical bill balances and you’re not in good health, chances are you’ll throw in the towel and then lose the dispute.
Why? Resolving medical bill balance disputes takes time and requires energy. Hence, maintaining good health is crucial to maintain the strength required to fight surprise medical bills. Otherwise, you’ll get frustrated and give up midway.
In this article, you’ll learn how to maintain good health to challenge medical bill balances and win. Let’s dive in!
First, What Are The Difficulties of Challenging Your Medical Bill Balances?
Medical bill balance disputes can be physically and mentally draining. If you’re not prepared to overcome the difficulties, you’ll give up in frustration (which the insurance companies are hoping for!). Here are some difficulties you can expect to encounter when you challenge medical bill balances.
Understanding Your Medical Bill Balance
Medical bills typically contain codes and vague descriptions of the services rendered. Or, they may be presented as one single line item with a large cost attached. So, the first difficulty when you receive a surprise bill would be figuring out what exactly the bill is for and why it’s so high.
To understand your medical bill balance, you’ll have to dig for information on what the codes mean. Some websites provide the meaning of these codes for a fee or may offer a limited number of searches per day after you register on their site. Examples are the AMA website and FairHealth Consumer website.
Looking up the codes may help determine why your medical bill balance is outrageous. The medical service you received might have been miscoded, resulting in a huge bill.
For instance, you may find that you were charged for an MRI when you only had a chest x-ray done. And, because your insurance company doesn’t cover MRIs, you end up receiving an outrageous bill.
Staying on the Phone Forever
Naturally, you would want to call your medical provider or insurer to challenge your medical bill balance. But, nothing will prepare you for the number of frustrating hours you would spend on the phone.
You’ll be put on hold, listening to music that is annoying, for more than half the time you would spend on the phone. And, when you finally get connected to a human being, your call might be transferred to another department. And, you start all over. Again.
There’s also the horror of your call getting disconnected accidentally after waiting a long time to get connected or when speaking to an agent. Then, you would have to start the process all over again.
Going Back and Forth
You’ll essentially be stuck between your provider and insurer when you challenge medical bill balances.
Your health provider would ask you to reach out to your insurer because they refused to cover your bill. And the insurance company would direct you back to your health provider for miscoding, sending the bill late, or some other reason.
In the end, you’ll be stuck in the middle with the bill, going back and forth between your provider and the insurer, trying to get the bill resolved.
Following Up Constantly
So, your insurer or provider’s office has promised to look into your medical bill balance dispute. Congratulations! But you’ll need to follow up a million and one times. This takes so much time and requires energy.
What’s more, the next time you call to follow up, you’d likely be connected to a different customer service agent. This isn’t necessarily bad if the previous agent made a detailed note of your case. Otherwise, you may have to start explaining the issue from scratch.
How Maintaining Good Health Helps Challenge Medical Bill Balances
Before you challenge your medical bill balance, here are reasons maintaining good health can help you win your medical bill balance dispute.
1. You’ll Have the Energy to Pursue Your Claim
Challenging a medical bill balance is stressful. You need to be in good health to overcome the difficulties you’ll encounter and win your medical bill balance dispute.
Imagine being ill and spending hours trying to connect to your insurer. Then, just after explaining the situation to the customer service agent, the call disconnects, and you have to begin again. You’ll likely give up in frustration.
Maintaining good health will give you the energy to stay on the phone and follow up no matter how long it takes to resolve your dispute. And, gathering and submitting medical documentation won’t be a demanding chore.
Beyond physical health, you also need good mental health. Having to go back and forth with your provider and insurer and pushing back against obstacles to resolve the medical bill balance dispute can be mentally draining.
2. You’ll Have Less Medical Conditions and Bills
Maintaining good health help prevent chronic health conditions like diabetes, obesity, hypertension, stroke, cancers, kidney diseases, arthritis, and more.
These conditions require continual medical intervention, and are more costly to treat, according to the University of Michigan researchers. So, maintaining good health can save you from huge medical debt.
However, beyond that, the medical bill balance dispute process can worsen your condition if you’re not in good health and lead to the accumulation of even more debt.
Say, you’re challenging a medical bill balance, and you have hypertension. If you don’t maintain your health, you might get a stroke during the process. Then, you’ll have to seek medical treatment for that also, and add more debt to your balance.
Furthermore, some chronic conditions may make it impossible for you to work, thereby preventing you from paying your medical debt. For instance, if your medical provider offers you a payment plan to pay the bill over time, you’ll be unable to offset the bill because you’re down with a chronic condition.
Tips To Maintain Good Health To Challenge Medical Bill Balances
Maintaining good health requires a lifestyle change. Here are some tips to help you maintain good health to enable you to win your medical bill balance dispute.
Add Energy-boosting Foods to Your Diet
You need to fuel your brain and body to get the energy to challenge your dispute. Add whole grains, nuts, proteins and high-fiber vegetables to your diets to maintain the high energy level you’ll need.
These energy-boosting foods have a low glycemic index. Unlike foods containing simple sugars and refined starch, they don’t spike your blood sugar rapidly. Instead, they increase your blood sugar more slowly, thereby providing you with more long-lasting energy.
Also, avoid grabbing an energy drink when you feel tired during the process. Instead, snack on energy-boosting fruits like bananas and strawberries as you conduct research or stay on hold on the phone.
Engage in Physical Activities
You don’t have to go to the gym. You can incorporate physical activities into your daily routine to help you maintain good health.
For instance, after spending hours on the phone with the CS agent, you can take a walk around your neighborhood to clear your head. If you need to submit documentation to your health provider physically, take the stairs.
Besides improving your physical health, these activities will also boost your mood, so you don’t feel too depressed by the challenges of your medical bill balance dispute.
Go for Routine Checkups
Even if you don’t feel sick, don’t miss your routine checkup. Regular doctor visits can save you from chronic conditions that result in huge medical debt. For instance, your provider can catch your high blood pressure before you develop a stroke.
Also, ensure you take your medication as prescribed. Don’t stop taking your prescription as soon as you start feeling better. This is common with antibiotics prescription and can cause serious health problems like antibiotic resistance.
Control Your Stress Level
You’ll surely be stressed when you challenge your medical bill balance. Regardless, try to control the stress. Do what you can when you can, and don’t dwell on the situation.
Talking to your friend or relative about how the dispute is going can help relieve the stress. You can also engage in relaxing activities such as taking a bath after a stressful day trying to resolve your medical bill balance.
In Conclusion
Maintaining good health can help you challenge medical bill balances and win. You’ll have the energy to chase your claim and won’t accumulate more debt from additional ill-health. If you need professional help with your non-hospital medical bill balance dispute, reach out to Medical Bill & Claim Resolution for a consult.