How to Avoid Medical Debt
According to the survey conducted by the commonwealth fund, every two people out of five are in deep medical debt. As the medical expenses are very high and because of the expensive treatments and inadequate insurance cover, a normal person with average income faces great problems in coping up with their debt.
Here are some ways by which you can cope up with your medical problems while not having to face debts or billing penalties related to your medical expenses.
How Medical Debt Happens
When you or your family gets into serious medical problems, then you also are so nervous that you don’t look for many things where you could have some savings on your medical bills. A large amount of money is required to meet the medical issues like you may have to pay for surgery, hospital charges, and many other additional charges like ambulance cost, staying in hospital, food services, doctors’ bills, medications, lab services and certain investigations which are conducted to establish the actual disease. For all these emergencies, you have to be prepared since at any moment you might have to spend some huge amount of money.
Medical Debt and Credit Cards
There are many cases where the whole treatment is done, however the patient is not able to make full payment of money and in that case hospitals have to face problems. So that is why the trend has started that hospitals try to encourage people to use their credit cards for making payments in a bid to insure that payment. Even these health care providers tie-up with credit card companies for offering discounts for people to use their credit cards in these hospitals.
Once people get convinced for using their credit card they covert their medical debt into a credit card debt, which makes it to cope up with as some additional penalties and fees will be charged on it which will further increase their debt and make it more difficult for them to pay off. These consumer debts put everything at stake from your mortgage to the job because it spoils the credit score.
The credit card is given to people to pay off their bills in an emergency when they are out of cash. But when these are used by the customers frequently they end up getting in debt day by day because of nonpayment of their credit card bills.
Generally for paying off their medical bills at times people think of taking a home equity loan. But taking a home equity bad credit loans will lead you to make large monthly payments which might be even more than your original medical bills. You will even have to pay high interest rate on your home equity loans.
By taking a home equity loan you put your home at risk as it is backed by the loan amount and if in case you fail to repay the loan amount then you have to end up losing your home. In these home equity loans the amount of loans given to the borrower, depends on the equity of their house, and generally 50 to 70 percent of home equity is given as loan amount in these loans.
Health Plans and Adequate Coverage
Health insurance plans are for protecting people from getting into huge medical debts, but many insurance companies don’t provide their policyholders with enough protection that they can manage their medical bills easily. According to a survey which was conducted 2003 by Commonwealth Fund Biennial Health Insurance found that two out of three people who are in debt were holding a medical insurance policy which gives coverage in case of emergencies only.
While the insurance plan provided by employers also shift the burden of health insurance on the shoulders of their employees. These insurance plans have many terms and condition and provide less coverage to people because of high deductibles. In 2003 the health saving accounts were introduced in which a person can save money for their health issues which is tax free.
Your Due Diligence
Even the consequences of medical no credit check loans debt are very bad because people avoid some very important treatments in order not to get into further debt and end up at times by losing their life. Even in a survey, it was noticed that two out of three people die because they don’t take necessary treatment for avoiding further medical debts.
Conclusion
Whenever you face any issues regarding payment for your medical bills, then directly contact your hospital or clinic and ask for some discount which they might agree to get the pending payment for the services which were provided by them.
These are some great points. Medical debt is a particularly scary. I've found the worst part is doctors don't give you any heads up about costs of procedures or any choice in the matter. Clearly I wouldn't want to compromise my health to be frugal, but if there were some options I might like to know. Thanks for the post!