With high healthcare costs, bills can quickly add up. In some cases, it is possible to negotiate your medical bills. Barak Richman, law professor at George Washington University, joined Cheddar News to discuss the easiest way to talk to medical debt companies about what's owed.

<div class="block">With high healthcare costs, bills can quickly add up. In some cases, it is possible to negotiate your medical bills. Barak Richman, law professor at George Washington University, joined Cheddar News to discuss the easiest way to talk to medical debt companies about what&#39;s owed.</div>

Stretching Your Dollar

Stretching Your Dollar: How to Negotiate Medical Bills

Well, with high health care costs bills can quickly add up. But did you know that in some cases it is possible to negotiate your medical bills? So joining me now to tell us everything that we need to know is Barack Richman, law professor at George Washington University Professor. It's great to have you on the show. We're going to lean on your legal expertise here. And how possible is it really to negotiate medical bills? Well, it's always worth trying. Um your your conversation with your correspondent a moment ago illustrated exactly how complicated billing is. Um She did a spectacular job trying to make it uh accessible. It's also complicated for the providers and they often build the wrong thing. Um So it's always possible to push back. It's always worth investigating and asking some questions and just making sure there's not a mistake. Yes, I would say maybe set aside some time for this in the new Year. If you do indeed have a lot of medical expenses on the horizon, what is the best way to approach a professor pushing back on some of those medical bills that you mentioned? Well, the first is simply to ask for some kind of justification. Um Sometimes you just see things that shouldn't be there. Other times you see especially high prices, something called the charge master price. Now, I don't want to get into the weeds here, but the the bottom line and this is a, this is a conclusion of law, this is a conclusion of policy. This is related to that no surprises. Act that Paul mentioned. The bottom line is that charge master prices should not be collected. And if you get a charge master price on your bill, you should call back and say nobody ever pays this amount. This is way higher than anybody else should ever have to pay. Could you please give me a more reasonable rate? How do you determine whether something is a charge master price? It's not easy. Um But the first thing to do is look for all the really high numbers. Um charge master numbers are really high. Um And the, and the second thing to do is to call up the provider and say exactly how did you get to this number? And if they say this is our charge, this is from our charge master. Any of these words. Uh You say, you know, that's not a price that I'm obligated to pay? I see. Ok. So how can you find out the market value of your care? Well, that's more complicated. Um And there are ways to do it. Um uh There are websites out there. Uh, that will tell you how much Medicare pays for a certain price. There are websites out there that will tell you what a normal insurer pays if you can access those. That's great. I think that's asking a lot of the average person. I think you can simply tell, ask the hospital or the provider said, what does Medicare pay for this? I'll pay, maybe I'll pay that, maybe I pay 1.5 times that, but I'm not gonna pay this price. That's hidden that nobody ever pays and that you're using either unthinkingly using it as a way of exploiting patients. So when it comes to negotiating with a provider, professor, what is the best way to navigate that? Obviously, it's uh negotiate with your insurance provider but also like your specific doctor's office as well. Yeah, I mean, you certainly can talk with your insurer and you can say, wait a second, why wasn't this covered? I think this should be covered or why was this covered for so little? I think it should be covered for more. Um But you also can call your provider, your hospital or doctor. Now, one thing you should be aware of is that the doctors will always blame the insurers and the insurers will always blame the doctors and you shouldn't find yourself in the middle of that. Um You should instead really push back on both and in particular, when you push back on your provider uh on your doctor or hospital simply say this amount is not the regular amount. Uh It might be a mistake. Please go back. Please look at a different, please look, please reconsider this. Um And frankly ask yourself just the normal question. Is this a reasonable amount for an individual to pay for the health care that they receive very often in the health care that they received was just a test uh or some kind of physician visit. Nothing, all that interventionist, nothing, all that complicated. Um And you should use your intuition. Ok. So that's the advice for the insurer. Is that right? I mean, how do you navigate it with the provider? If, if the provider makes you seem to think perhaps you are covered and then you find a medical bill later on that shows in fact, you were not covered. You know, that's the advice I would give for the provider. Um the pro provide and very often you get a high price because you're not covered even if you thought you were or sometimes you are covered just inadequately covered. Um One thing the Affordable Care Act did and this is important for people to know it did expand the ranks of the insured, but it also propagated a lot of very, very skinny insurance products. You might think you're covered, you actually are technically covered, you have insurance. Um but that still generates really high prices that you have to pay to the provider. And again, a lot of those prices simply are unenforceable and uncollectible. Um So you go to your provider and you say, I think this is a mistake. Uh And simply you, the provider are not legally entitled to charge me the charge master prices. Ok. Very good to know. Are there financial aid options uh available to help people pay for medical care, even medical debt? So there are a number um they by no means cover the gap. Um One reason you should go back to your provider over and over again um is simply because they are in some senses obligated to provide certain charity care and you might be entitled to charity care even if you have some insurance. That's another reason to push back on your provider. Are you sure that I'm not entitled to charity care? Do I qualify for one of your charity care programs? And then there are other programs out there, other other companies that help you manage your medical debt, sometimes they simply negotiate on your behalf and sometimes they inform the hospitals that their bills are wrong ended. I mean, on average, how much money do you think Americans can save by using some of these tactics? Well, medical debt is reaching more families than ever before. It has become in many ways the biggest challenge to our health sector right now. Um And I have to say that hospitals are not responding in ways that you want them to, they are not reducing their prices, they are not expanding charity care in many ways. And I don't know how intentional this is, but in many ways, they're kind of double downing on their collection efforts. So that puts the individual uh really at the battlefront of in many ways the most important health care policy question that we're confronting. Um So you have to stay vigilant. Yes, you have to make sure that you push back. Professor. Let me just jump in very quickly, very quickly. 15 2nd answer. If you can. If one of your bills does go to a collection agency, what does that mean for you? You have to call them and tell them that you don't owe them money, make sure that you respond even if you don't pay the money. All right, professor. Thank you so much for joining a really good insight on how to navigate a complicated system.