Medical debt – What you need to do to get out of it
If you have incurred a debt resulting from medical bills then it can be dealt with, if you go about the process of clearing the debt in a right manner. If the overall medical debt you have threatens to affect the financial security of your family then you should approach for medical debt help immediately. Some of the things you can do to alleviate your medical debt burden are explained below.
- Opt for medical aid from hospitals – You can qualify for 100% medical bill elimination if your income is below 200% of the federal poverty level. If your income is beyond this limit then you can get reduced financial aid. You can also qualify for substantial medical debt aid even if you have quite high income if some medical disaster results in a bill that exceeds a certain percentage of your income. Usually most hospitals set this medical debt-to-income ratio as 30%. Most financial aid departments will pay for the exceeded amount if your medical bill exceeds your income by 30%. However, there is the condition that you need to exhaust all your other resources like health insurance before you qualify for the debt exemption.
- Set up a payment plan – You can set up a medical payment plan with your hospital or doctor which will help you to pay your medical bills at your convenience. You can ask for an interest free short term payment plan. Take care to make the plan realistic so that it is accepted by the hospital. Also see to it that you keep all negotiations in written documents, that is, you send a letter with the payment terms that you want and receive a confirmation letter in return.
- Pay off smaller bills – If you have enough money on your checking account then pay off the smaller medical debts in lump sum. This will decrease your debt burden by taking some bills off the list.
This article gives you tips on how you can pay off your medical debt. You will see that this slowly but steadily will help you pay off your medical debts.
- Pay in small increments – Try to pay off your bill in small increments. You may have other loans or debts to repay or your financial condition might not permit you to make large payments every month, but pay as much as possible. You will see that this slowly but steadily will help you pay off your medical debts.
You should try to pay off your medical bills as soon as possible as hospitals can send you bills to a collection agency to get the payment from you. It is better to avoid such extreme situations and co-ordinate with the hospital and doctors in order to pay off your medical bill.
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