Taking care of your health brings on unwanted stress, especially if you don’t have health coverage. However, knowing the different ways to handle medical bills without insurance show you that being savvy can save you some money.
Alternate Prescription Methods
There are several ways to save money on your prescription medicine if you don’t have insurance. The best solution is to ask for the generic brands of your prescriptions. The standard version typically works just as well as the more expensive name-brand alternative. It’s also possible that doctors offer you some free samples when testing your new prescription, giving you an idea of how the generic version works before you commit.
Pay in Advance
Several medical practices offer discounts to patients that can pay upfront for their service. This effective strategy is for people who know they will have a medical incident like having a baby. Unfortunately, if you need emergency assistance, this is not an option to save a few bucks.
Using Cash for a Payment Plan
As the famous adage states, “Cash is king.” If you cannot pay your bill upfront, the best solution is to create a payment plan and pay in cash. It would be best not to hesitate with this option, considering some practices may send your unpaid debt to a collections agency in 90 days. You’re much better off dealing with the billing office of a medical facility than a collection agency.
Research Costs
One of the drawbacks of having health insurance is that your provider limits you to the resources in its network. By formulating a game plan of which hospitals, urgent cares, and doctors serve you at the best price, you will establish a self-created network to handle your needs. For those uninsured, you can compare costs between other doctors and facilities. While the process may be tedious and time-consuming, figuring those costs out may save you hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Specified Health-Related Savings Account
The whole concept of insurance is having it in case something serious happens. You can create your insurance account by putting money aside in a separate savings account. Building up this fund may limit the financial blow of an emergency that needs immediate attention.
If you are in a situation where you need medical assistance, debating whether you should have it treated based on its costs should not be an option. As you can see, there are several different ways to handle medical bills without insurance. It’s possible even to combine all these ideas, saving you as much as you possibly can in the process.
