‘An Arm and a Leg’: Financial self-defense school is now in session

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Reviewed by Emily Henderson, B.Sc.Aug 10 2020

When you need medical care, it can be a lot like entering a casino — playing for your financial life with the deck stacked against you.

But in this episode, reporter Celia Llopis-Jepsen offers insight and tips no dealer will divulge. She got a health care executive to talk honestly — maybe more honestly than he realized — about how his company and others are playing the game when they send patients huge bills.

When she investigated one man's $80,000 bill, here's what Llopis-Jepsen found:

Providers who took some of the $175 billion in pandemic-related bailout funds that Congress authorized in March had to promise not to ding patients with surprise bills for COVID-related care. But don't expect your provider to merely tell you if that rule applies in your case. (That $80,000 bill did not include a footnote that said, "Once insurance pays us, you can forget all about this.")

If you get a bill for COVID treatment, you can look up the provider yourself. Llopis-Jepsen found a government database where you can see if your provider took bailout funds.

She also has a tip sheet for pushing back against your medical bills.

And this story — which shows you don't always owe what you are charged — is packed with insight, too.

Podcast scheduling announcement

From here on out, look for financial self-defense lessons from "An Arm and a Leg" every two weeks, instead of occasional seasons. Because it is always a good time to learn how to stand up against unfair medical bills.

“An Arm and a Leg” is a co-production of Kaiser Health News and Public Road Productions.

To keep in touch with "An Arm and a Leg," subscribe to the newsletter. You can also follow the show on Facebook and Twitter. And if you've got stories to tell about the health care system, the producers would love to hear from you.

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This article was reprinted from khn.org with permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Kaiser Health News, an editorially independent news service, is a program of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan health care policy research organization unaffiliated with Kaiser Permanente.