Health
Reading a medical bill and checking it for errors
The first document most people receive is not a bill, and the one that is contains mistakes often enough to be worth checking line by line.
An explanation of benefits arrives from an insurer and is not a bill. It sets out what was charged, what the plan allowed, what it paid and what it says you owe. The bill comes separately from the provider, and comparing the two is the single most useful check, because the amounts should reconcile and frequently do not.
Ask for an itemised bill rather than a summary. Summaries hide the recurring errors: a service billed twice, a quantity that is wrong, a charge for something that did not happen, or a code describing something more intensive than what was done.
Federal protections now limit surprise billing in several situations, including emergency care and out-of-network clinicians working at an in-network facility. If a bill arrives for one of those, that is a specific thing to raise by name rather than a general dispute.
Most hospitals are required to maintain financial assistance policies and to publicise them, and many will discuss a payment plan or a reduction. Neither is usually offered unprompted.
What to do next. Request an itemised bill, reconcile it against the explanation of benefits, and ask the provider for its financial assistance policy.
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