March 26, 2012
After a hospital stay, the last item on your mind is scrutinizing every line of tiny print on a hospital bill. The stress of the illness or injury, and the added financial stress of paying the bill, might distract you from giving your bill the attention it needs.
And that could end up costing you thousands of dollars. The Department of Health and Human Services estimated that in 2004, individuals in the U.S. paid $31.2 billion in erroneous charges.
According to Equifax, 90% of all hospital bills contain at least one error, if not more. In fact, this practice is so common that there are entire agencies specializing solely in hospital bill auditing.
You can prevent this from happening to you if you know where to look. At first glance, a hospital bill can be confusing. Medical jargon, coding rather than detailed listing, and abbreviations can make the bill even more difficult to understand. Coding refers to special codes hospitals assign to certain areas of billing, so that the code appears on the bill rather than the name of the service provided. Hospitals are now required to list each item individually on the bill, rather than listing a generic group of costs, so they sometimes assign special codes to individual services.
There are several areas of the bill that need to be scrutinized. One of the most important areas to examine is your personal information. Ensure that this is entirely correct, especially your social security number. Other items to analyze are:
- Room and board charges. Be sure that if you stayed in a double occupancy room, you are charged for a double, not a single room. Also, if you were assigned to a single room because a double was not available, be sure you were not charged for a single.
- Admission charges. If this is unreasonably high, you might want to examine further.
- Medication and prescription charges. Be sure that you are not charged for drugs you were not given or that you declined.
- Large groupings of lab work. Each test should be itemized on the bill.
- Double billing. Make sure you were not charged twice for a procedure, test, or other treatment.
- Erroneous charges. Be sure that you were not charged for tests that were not performed or that you declined. Also, ensure you were not charged for tests that were administered twice because they were performed incorrectly the first time.
- Supplies charges. Make sure you are not charged individually for supplies used during a procedure. Such charges would be covered in the cost of the procedure.
- Personal charges. Toothbrushes, combs, slippers, etc. are covered in the cost of the room, and you should not be charged separately for them.
By paying close attention to any medical-related billing, you can rest assured that you are not paying for expenses you did not incur while in the hospital.
For more information on your Health Insurance, contact Barrood Agency today!
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Barrood Agency, Inc.
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Allen Levine and Associates
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50 Paterson Street
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1140 Rte.22 East, Suite 202
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New Brunswick, NJ 08901
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Bridgewater, NJ 08807
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Office: 732.247.8664
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Office: 908.252.2354
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After graduating Rutgers University, David worked with John Hancock Insurance company to learn about the insurance industry and to concentrate on Life and Health Insurance.
Levine & Associates and Barrood Agency are sources of unlimited financial and insurance knowledge! If you are looking for information on 
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