Bill Ranson

Medical Bankruptcy – Have You Got Medical Bills You Simply Cannot Pay? Consider Debt Settlement

Medical Bankruptcy has become a common topic in the current society. Obviously each individual person is charged with medical bills because it is a universal truth that no one can stay away from being provided with a medical service. At any stage of life, you have to get the medical service from a hospital or another medical service provider. There they charge you, or even if the service is free, at least you will have to spend some money on your medicine. When these bills are collected you might be finding it difficult to pay back them and thus you become a debtor.

Most people find the Medical Bankruptcy as the sole solution for medical debts. But as a matter of fact debt settlement is more efficient than Medical Bankruptcy. When you declare Medical Bankruptcy you will be deprived of certain privileges and it has the risk of taking over all your belongings and ultimately you will be left with nothing of your own.

Thus the most recommended option is to replace Medical Bankruptcy by debt settlement. There are plenty of debt settlement services available for your help. You can simply search in World Wide Web and find an appropriate company for your aid. They have the capability of negotiating your medical debt, by discussing with the Medical service. But keep in mind that your choice should be a legitimate company which will not mislead you. If you get trapped by a fake company, your hard earned money will go astray.

If you search for the best options to get free from medical debts you will realize that Medical Bankruptcy is not the best solution. You can try by questioning different people who has gained freedom from medical debts, how they have achieved it. If you do not have related people or friends to get advices from, you can simply do it through the internet. Refer to the consumer comments published in famous web sites. If possible it is better, if you can contact them. Almost all the results and comments will show the drawbacks of Medical Bankruptcy.

If you are still not satisfied, you can contact people who have declared bankruptcy. You will realize that only a few percentages of individuals have gained relief through Medical Bankruptcy. Most of them have gained nothing but lost every thing.

So it is time for you to decide your future. Are you ready to put your future at risk by using Medical Bankruptcy or to safeguard your future with a debt settlement service?

If you are deeply in debt and are looking for legitimate ways to control and eliminate your financial obligations then a debt settlement could be the answer. Consumers can expect to eliminate 60% of their unsecured debt on average with the help of a legitimate debt settlement company. To find established and proven debt relief companies in your state check out the following link:

Free Debt Help

Make Sky High Phone Bills a Thing of the Past

In a day and age where our social, working and personal lives are conducted more and more over the phone, hefty phone bills are an unfortunate reality. This needn’t be the case however, as there are countless ways in which the average phone user can substantially cut down their monthly bills without infringing on the amount they use their phone.

Sky high bills are particularly prevalent amongst the mobile phone community. For individuals on a ‘pay as you go’ style tariff that involves manual credit top-ups to be made in order to use the phone, switching to a competitive ‘pay monthly’ package may prove much more economical. People who top-up their phone with 20, for example, will find that a ‘pay monthly’ package not only offers them their standard 20’s worth of calls but also added extras like a free handset, extra minutes and free text messages that all take detract from their original bill.

For individuals who are already on a ‘pay monthly’ contract, hefty phone bills aren’t unheard of either as callers exceed the number of free minutes in their phone package and start paying per minute or text. Thinking carefully about the way in which you use your mobile is the first step to reducing your phone bill. Ensuring you are on a network that compliments how you use your phone is important and will allow you to be switched on to better deals. If you discover most of your calls are to a particular network why not investigate a contract that offers free calls to this network at all times of day?

Expensive phone bills aren’t solely reserved to mobile users however as home phones can just as easily run up substantial debts. Making international calls in particular is a gripe with phone users who are eager to speak to friends and family studying, working and travelling abroad. Cheap international calls aren’t a creature of myth however as many websites now offer access codes that heavily discount the cost of calling abroad from UK landlines. With calls to places like Bangladesh, Canada and Australia all starting at 2p a minute, the cost of making international calls becomes just as cheap as calling a local number.

Finally, home owners eager to save money on their landline bills can also look into getting free minutes similar to mobile users. Signing up to packages that offer free weekend and evening calls can put a noticeable dent into bills that were once unaffordable. Some packages also offer free calls to numbers you dial on a regular basis so making a plan of how you use your home phone will allow you to assess the best deal for you.

Amber Laurie is an expert in telecommunications and personal finance.

Lower Your Medical Bills By Finding Medical & Hospital Bill Errors

If you have been admitted to a hospital and find yourself owing a substantial amount of money there are a few things you can do to substantially reduce your bills. With a little perseverance and investment of time, you can uncover costly overcharging errors you’re not responsible for. After you’re done, you can negotiate what you legitimately owe and the payment terms.

Here’s what to do:

Request both the hospital and your insurance company to audit the hospital and doctor bills.

Demand an itemized bill (you are legally entitled to an itemized bill if you request one) and review your self for the following:

Duplicate Billing: Make sure you haven’t been charged twice for the same service, supplies or medications.

Number of Days in the Hospital: Check the dates of your admission and discharge. Most hospitals will charge for your admission day, but not for your day of discharge. If you have been charged for the day of discharge, ask the hospital to waive the charge for that day.

Incorrect Room Charges: If you were in a semi-private room, make sure you’re not being charged for a private room.

Operating Room: It’s not uncommon for hospitals to bill for more operating room time than you actually used. Compare the charge with your anesthesiologist’s records.

Unbundled Charges: This is when a group of tests are billed individually, when they should have been billed together. Surgical procedures and tests frequently consist of several parts. For instance, you could have received a cervical MRI and a lumbar MRI. A hospital or MRI facility can bill 1,200 for each MRI if they were done at different times, however, if they were performed on the same day the total amount that the facility will be paid by an insurance company may be only 1,400 or 1,800 instead of 2,400. Many times, MRI’s will be scheduled on different days, frequently one day after the other, in order to bill at the higher rate. Do not allow a hospital or MRI facility to charge you the full price if they did this. An example of a procedure could be where you fractured two fingers or two ribs and you were charged the full price to set each finger or rib individually, instead of the full price to set one finger or rib and a discounted price for the second finger or rib.

Up Selling: This occurs when a doctor orders a generic drug which is readily available, but the hospital provides you with a more costly brand name drug without your knowledge or consent and bills you for the more costly medication. Since you are not an expert at determining whether or not a drug use generic and you may not have even been in a mental condition to make that determination; your doctor ordered the generic drug; and it was readily available in the hospital drug store, you are not responsible for the increased charge.

Fraudulent Coding Also Called Up Coding: Hospitals may change the charge for a lower cost service or medication to one that’s more costly. For instance, a doctor may order a generic drug, but the hospital “accidentally” bills the patient for a much more expensive brand name drug when the generic is actually provided. If done intentionally, this is fraud. Where this occurs several times on one bill or occurs with multiple patients, this could constitute intent.

Fraudulent CodingWeird ChargesFake Language: Hospitals may invent confusing language to cheat patients. They use medical sounding names for everyday items and charge you an astronomical price. For example, an “oral administration fee” is really a charge for the nurse handing you pills. You do not have to pay for that because it is part of the room and board. Other items that have been reported as appearing on hospital bills are: “disposable mucous recovery systems” (a box of Kleenex tissues); “Thermal therapy” (a plastic bag filled with ice); “Gauze collection bag” (a trash bag); and finally, a patient who was given a teddy bear by the hospital and charged for a “cough support device.” Not only is this fraud, but if it wasn’t requested, the teddy bear was a gift.

Keystroke Error: A computer operator accidentally hits the wrong key on a keyboard which can result in an incorrect charge or a charge for a service you didn’t get.

Canceled Services: You may have been charged for expensive services or tests which your physician ordered and then canceled or for some reason was never rendered.

Assignment: Check to see if the hospital or doctor accepts assignment of your insurance payment. This means that the hospital or doctor is allowed to bill your medical insurance and to receive payment directly by your insurance company, without a check going to you. This is a good thing. You can find out if the medical provider accepts assignment by asking your insurance company. When a hospital or doctor accepts an assignment, you are assigning to the hospital or doctor, your right to the reimbursement check from your insurance company. By accepting assignment, the medical provider is now in your position and has whatever legal rights you had to collect the payment, and no more. When accepting assignment, a hospital or doctor may not legally seek any payment from you. This means that if the medical provider bills your insurance company for 3,682 and you were only entitled to be reimbursed 1,136, the medical provider must accept this amount and you are not responsible for the remainder of the bill.

Why do hospitals and doctors accept assignment? Because when the check goes to the patient, many patients keep the money which requires the hospital or doctor to sue the patient. Accepting assignment allows the medical provider to know that they will be paid and to avoid the costs of litigation if the medical provider must sue the patient to recover payment for services rendered.

Negotiating: Finally, after eliminating all of the errors you can find, try negotiating your bill. If you are able to pay a lump sum settlement to the hospital, you can usually negotiate the amount you owe. You should be able to deduct at from one third to one half of the bill, which is probably the amount that the hospital would have to pay a lawyer to collect a fee from you. Keep in mind, that collection agencies routinely settle bills for 50%. Depending upon your income, you may even be able to settle for as little as 10%. If you are unable to pay a lump sum settlement, you should be able to negotiate a payout over a period of years. If you do not earn much money, you can remind your medical provider that if they obtain a judgment against you, the court may award as little as 25 per month, even if the bill is thousands of pounds.

As utilities throughout the U.S. propose rate increases of as much as 70 percent, many homeowners are looking for ways to lower their energy bills. Simple steps such as home sealing can lower a home’s heating and cooling costs by up to 20 percent, saving homeowners hundreds of pounds.

“Having an energy-efficient home is just as important in the summer as it is in the winter. Home sealing is a simple way to keep cool air in, stay comfortable, and reduce energy bills,” says Steve Baden, Executive Director of the Residential Energy Services Network, a non-profit energy efficiency organization. “One of the first steps homeowners should consider is properly sealing the home. Air leaking through gaps and cracks can add up to as much airflow as an open window, and an air conditioner is one of the largest summer energy expenditures.”

Sealing the home with silicone sealants limits the costly escape of cool air from air-conditioned environments. A typical home can be sealed with four tubes of GE Silicone II, meaning that 20 could save a homeowner hundreds of pounds in energy costs.

GE offers a variety of silicone and acrylic home sealing solutions that can help a homeowner have a tighter, more energy efficient home. Jeff Davis, General Manager of GE Sealants & Adhesives, recommends a premium silicone sealant for summer home sealing.

“Silicone sealants provide homes with an air and water-tight seal that creates the highest level of efficiency and protection against the elements,” says Davis. “And because of its unmatched durability and adhesion, homeowners only have to seal a home once with silicone.”

Lower Bills With Debt Consolidation Refinancing Vs Home Equity Loan

Consolidating your debt can help you lower your monthly bills and interest rates. While refinancing and home equity loans can both help you pay off accounts, they have their own benefits. The best choice depends on your current mortgage terms and future financial goals.

The Goal Of Debt Consolidation

The goal of debt consolidation is to pay off your current debt with a new, lower rate loan. The lower your rates, the more of a savings your pocketbook will see each month. But loan fees can eat into those savings.

Extending your loan term can also lower your monthly payments. But your interest costs will be higher over the life of the loan than if you choose a shorter term.

For debt consolidation to be most affective, plan on paying off and closing accounts as soon as your receive your loan amount. That way you wont be paying interest on two account or be tempted to use your credit.

Refinancing Your Mortgage For Debt Consolidation

Refinancing your mortgage to cash-out your equity for debt consolidation purposes will qualify you for lower rates than a home equity loan. Having one mortgage is seen as less risky by lenders than by having two loans.

But you also have to consider overall rates. If you currently have a low rate mortgage, then refinancing for a slightly higher rate doesnt make sense.

For example, if you have a 200,000 mortgage at 5% for 30 years, your interest costs 186,513.24. Say you refinance for an additional 10.000, but now your rate jumps to 6%. Your interest costs jumps to 231,677.04 an increase over 45,000. It would have been better to go with a home equity loan.

Using A Home Equity Loan

A home equity loan allows you to use your equity without affecting your current mortgage rate. In some cases, it can also protect you from having to provide private mortgage insurance, an additional cost.

However, home equity loans, also known as second mortgages, have higher rates than if you refinance your mortgage. This is only an issue if you have a high rate mortgage. In this case, the better choice is to combine the cash-out with a refinance.

In the end, you need to compare numbers to find what is your best option. Luckily, lenders offer free online quotes to make this easy.

Get Rid of Some “Extras”
The key to financial freedom is building wealth. The key to building wealth is eliminating all your extra bills so you have money to save. The average consumer’s credit report carries quite a burden from these bills as well. Let’s start with what hurts the most. Eliminate any habits you currently have. Most habits cost money and if it’s a habit it can’t be healthy for you in the long run anyway. Smoking, drinking, candy, coffee, collecting junk, etc. You will be surprised how much cash you pocket if you just quit 1 or 2 of the above (if any apply of course). By giving up a habit you are not only saving money and maybe even your health, but you are also gaining self-discipline helping you mature financially.