Obligatory Introductory Post

Hello, and welcome!

I'll keep this short, since let's face it ... you're not here to listen to me talk about myself and share witty anecdotes. You're here because you would like to know more about your health insurance coverage or about the confusing statement you've just gotten from your doctor's office after some treatment that you had.

If you're like most people, your insurance paperwork and medical bills probably resemble gibberish written in a foreign language. Columns of numbers and unfamiliar words and "explanations" that are written in jargony language that you don't understand. Maybe this makes you feel stupid or uninformed. You're an intelligent person, right? After all, you knew enough to get yourself a job with health benefits, or to shop around and buy an individual health plan. Why can't you figure out this insurance gibberish???

Here's the dirty secret: you can't figure it out because it works in your health insurance company's (and often your doctor's) best interest to make your bills and statements as unclear as possible. Simply put? They're hoping that you'll give up trying to understand what's happening and just pay what they tell you to pay. Remember - every bill you pay is a bill that the insurance company doesn't have to pay. And if the insurance company doesn't pay, they benefit financially. So it's not in their best interest to make sure you understand your benefits and bills.

As for the doctors' office? They just want to get payment from somewhere. In many cases, the doctor's billing office will help you appeal to your insurance company if there is a problem. And if they're a good billing office, they should take the lead in appealing problems when they arise. 

But ultimately, the doctor's office just wants to get paid from somewhere so that they can close your file. If you pay a bill your insurance should have paid? It's all the same to them.

So sadly, the onus is on you - the patient - to understand your benefits and to monitor your bills and deal with any problems that arise. It's not easy, but it's necessary.

And I'm here to help. After all of these years working in the industry and only being able to help patients who come into the offices of the few doctors I work for, I wanted to create a website where people in general can get the help and answers that they need for questions about health insurance and medical billing.

While I am unable to provide help or assistance regarding particular health insurance or billing problems that you, individually, are having, I welcome any comments or suggestions for general topics I should cover in future posts. I can be reached at medbillhelp (at) gmail [dot] com.

Thanks for reading!