Well, I thought I was out of the woods until I got an EOB from Anthem today. Piper was in the hospital for three days, and amassed a bill of around $2400. Thankfully, I'm now on my company's insurance so things like this shouldn't happen. Until then, I think I'm going to have to set up payment terms with the hospital. I'm curious to see how much I can spread it out without getting a loan. I would love to be able to make payments on this without dipping into any of my emergency fund.
On a brighter note, I wanted to talk a little about my new insurance. I went ahead and signed up for a flexible spending account with the new plan. Based on last year's expenses, I was pushing 3k in expected outlay. The limit is only 2k, so we will see how long that lasts, but I have a feeling I'll burn through it pretty quickly.
Our insurance is through Aetna, and they have a pretty cool system for the flex spending account. Basically, they try to keep all the paperwork out of it for the members. When they receive a claim from a provider, they look to see if you paid a copay. If you did, they look in your flex spending account to see if you have a balance. If you do, they cut you a check along with the provider -- and you don't have to submit any claims. Things get even cooler at the pharmacy. Since everything is electronic with checking for benefits, the system AUTOMATICALLY PAYS the pharmacy out of your flex spending account and you get your prescriptions for "free".
All in all, after the tax breaks I should net out to having about the same take home pay as I had before when paying for private insurance.
In the mean time, when I get the bill from the hospital I'll be sure to post what I managed to talk them down to. Until then, I'm going to grudgingly wait for the bill to show up.
One thing, hopefully you won't continue to have the dr bills you had last year.
ReplyDeleteAnother, I have a FSA, totally see the benefits of it and would LOVE it to be like what you explained. Instead I am always sending them paperwork for this or that. PAIN IN THE REAR. We are probably not going to keep it because of this big flaw in the typical fsa system.