andy

When my wife and I had our second child he was born with complications (later diagnosed with Cystic Fibrosis) and was in the hospital for several months. We ended up paying thousands and thousands of dollars (and are still paying, almost done) We live in Ct. and went to prvidence RI for my sons care, it was just as close if not closer to Hartford. The Insurance Company would only pay for 80% of the care because we were “out of network” and my wife was able to get the number dramatically reduced but we still had to pay a significant amount. The craziest part of this is, when you go to the hospital you are actually dealing with several companies that bill you independantly the doctors, pharmacy, radilology, the hospital fees, I.V. pharmacy. so you need to set up payment plans with every one of them.

Most recently, my son need a vest that shakes the snot out of him to get up secrections “keeps him healthy” this vest costs $16,000.00 and the insurance company wanted to contribute $3,000.00 leaving us with a $13,000.00 bill. Luckily my wife was able to find an alternative company that negotiated with the insurance company and will bill the 3,000.00 anually until it is paid off, and we didn’t have to pay a dime.

Long and short is, insurance companies are for profit organizations and rightfully so, but if you are willing to put in some time and then some more time you are able to negotiate better terms better coverage etc.

to boot, my monthly premium is 1,600.00/ per month plus hospital bills,medicaitons and doctors visits.

Ramit Sethi

We’re writing an ebook on health insurance, and I’d be crazy not to collect stories from the thousands of people who read iwillteachyoutoberich every day. I didn’t want them as comments because people are more comfortable leaving their private information privately. The stories will be integrated with original content we’re writing.

Btw, I noticed you complained about The Scrooge Strategy, too. If you’re looking for a blog of entirely free content, iwillteachyoutoberich probably isn’t for you. This site is going to have a combination of free and paid content — on all different kinds of topics, with different levels of information (video, interviews, blog posts, ebooks, etc).

Patient Centric

Went to doctor with a cold & chest pain. Following chest X-Ray and subsequent CT scan, was referred to Oncologist with suspected lymphoma. Oncologist put odds of lymphoma at 75% and recommended biopsy. Put pressure on me like a car sales man to have the biopsy done ASAP and forced me to go to a specific surgeon. Surgeon said he doesn’t accept any insurance but his office staff will help with filing paperwork for out of network benefits with insurance company. Surgeon recommended procedure of obtaining the biopsy sample via an incision in the chest and thru the ribs – cost $20K. Surgeon’s office started calling me 5 times a day asking me to not delay and get the biopsy done ASAP. I called my insurance company (Empire Blue Cross)and they suggested that I go to a place that covered this procedure in their network – Memorial Sloan Kettering (MSK) hospital in NY. The surgeon in MSK was very busy and I had to wait for 2 weeks to see him. However he was floored by the expensive procedure recommended by the other surgeon because the biopsy sample could be obtained via a simple endoscopic procedure via the nose. Much less risky and much cheaper (and covered by insurance).

- There are plenty of doctors and surgeons out there who do not care about you. They are glad to exploit your situation and recommend unnecessary expensive procedures just to make a quick buck off of you.

- When you don’t know how to evaluate different options doctors/surgeons recommend, go with the one who looks busier (e.g. go with Sloan Kettering where you may have to wait for two weeks instead of surgeon in small town who doesn’t appear to have many patients and is willing to operate on you first thing tomorrow morning). They have less incentive to cheat you with more complicated procedures

- While insurance companies are also looking out to save a buck, sometimes this can benefit patients too