Trench’s Health Insurance Tips: Deductibles

Here’s a little health insurance tip from me to you. It will make my life easier and make you look like less of an assclown.

Say your health insurance policy has a $500 deductible. And say that you have a condition that requires you to see multiple practices (i.e. primary care, specialist, and hospital). This would require you to file 3 claims to your insurance company.

Now say the hospital asked you to pay your $500 deductible up front and you do. The claims from all 3 practices get filed with the insurance company. However, the insurance company gets the specialist’s office’s claim first and takes out the $500 deductible from that claim, leaving you with a $500 balance at the specialist’s office.

What’s that, you say? You shouldn’t have a specialist’s bill because you already paid your deductible to the hospital? Well, let me be the first to say, YOU STUPID ASSCLOWN!!!! Run up to the nearest wall and slam your head into it for being so stupid.

Let it be known now, forever and throughout perpetuity that the insurance companies not only don’t know who you paid your deductible to, they don’t really care either. The insurance company will take out your deductible from whatever claim they receive first.

Now that I’ve made you smarter, here’s what you can do if you paid one practice up front and the insurance company took out your deductible from a different claim. If you paid up front to one practice and the deductible was applied to another, you should have a credit at the practice you paid up front.

DO NOT call the insurance company about it. DO NOT call the practice that is billing you for the deductible. Neither of those places can do anything about it. DO call the practice or facility that you have a credit with. They are not going to call you.

After you pay a practice up front, it becomes your responsibility to get any credit back. Also, the practice that you have a balance with is not going to wait around for you to collect your credit. They will keep billing you and possibly send you to collections unless they receive payment. They are well within their rights to do so.

Any questions? I didn’t think so.