So I went to a hospital the other day and was told I have a de-deductible of $3,000. I am not sure how much my insurance paid (if anything). At some point I have to talk to the hospital about payment and I want to talk them down to accept a lower amount. I do have some savings to offer, but I would like to get them to agree to take that amount and write off the rest rather than just admit I have that safety net and still have payments.
If it helps the discussion my insurance is supposed to be “managed”. Which means that I call them and they then tell me where I can go and not have to pay anything out of pocket. It just happened that I had been having some pretty bad stomach issues I was hoping would go away. I then realized I had spend just under 2 days like this, but it was memorial day so their number was closed and any small clinic, so I went to the ER worried my appendix was bursting or something serious was happening to me.
I mostly do that but I have to tell you its a fight every time as even the reasonable places expect the bill to be paid like a week after they bill you. So they take 3 weeks to do the claim and bill you and they don’t recognize the insurance company will take 3 weeks to process the claim formally and they certainly don’t want to give you the curtesy of taking 3 weeks to compare the bill to the eob and send out the payment. Again this is the reasonable ones as many places insist on a credit card being put on file and maybe they have an agreement but I have literally been ghosted by providers if I refuse to put one down. So they technically are not requiring it but they are. Oh and to boot they mention if they charge you wrong it is fine because they will just refund you. Which means if you use an hsa debit card and they charge it and then refund you well they just basically acted as your money laundering agent for tax evasion. The US is wack.
My limited experience with provider bills is that even two months “late”, none have ever referred the bill to collections. Nor did they ever charge the “late” fees that their bills had threatened. I’ve never come across a provider that demanded a credit card on file – and chargebacks would ensue if they did run the card without notifying me – but my experience certainly won’t be a consistent across the country.
I’m not sure what you mean about the part involving tax evasion, but broadly speaking: if a card is going to be held on file – whether for a rental car or something else – debit cards are not advisable. Also, my cursory understanding is that HSA cards should only be used for point of sale transactions, since apparently it could sometimes be declined for card-number-entered transactions.
Its a bit like the law that is on the books but not enforced. Until it is and the problem with using another credit card is now you are taking out of your regular savings when you specifically have saved for medical issues from a pool that is not being used for that. Its not great.