I'm Buried in Medical Debt I Didn't Choose. What Can I Do?

You didn't overspend. You didn't make a dumb choice. You got sick or maybe someone you love got sick and the bills buried you.Anyway, medical debt is different from any other kind of debt and there are actually real options that most people never got told about today.I'm going to walk you through them because listen to this, we got an interesting message today and this kind of debt does have a unique sting because it doesn't feel like it's your fault because it isn't. It wasn't your choice to get sick, but there's more way out than you've been led to believe.So stay with me today because there is a path here and we're gonna find it together. Hello and welcome to Financially Confident Christian.I'm Ralph Estep Jr. And I just want to thank you so much for giving me a little bit of your time today. Today we're talking about what to do when medical debt you didn't choose has buried you. We got a great listener question.Who's being crushed by medical debt? And it's not like they had reckless spending. It was just illness and now they feel hopeless and they feel unfairly punished.And this kind of debt has a special weight that came from suffering. This wasn't choices you made. It wasn't like you went out and bought stuff that you wanted to buy. And yes, it's real and it feels unfair at times.Now maybe you've got a question that you're wrestling with right now. I would love to hear your question. I'd love to feature it on the show. You can go to financiallyconfidentchristian.com/questionWe'll put a link in the show notes. But again, that's financiallyconfidentchristian.com/question Now I'm going to tell you right now this particular question. I saw the subject line.I'm going to read it to you here in a minute. And I just said, wow, this is when we need to cover on this show. This was the subject line. It said drowning in medical debt. That wasn't my fault.Is there any way out? I'm going to tell you right now, yes, there is a way out. But let's get right to the question. Listener wrote this. Hi Ralph.A year ago I was healthy and stable. Then I had a medical emergency, a hospital stay, a series of follow ups.And, and even with insurance, I came out the other side owing more than $40,000. Yeah, I'm going to tell you right now that's a lot of money. The thing that eats at Me is I didn't do anything wrong.I didn't run up credit cards on vacations. I got sick and now I feel punished for it. The bills are overwhelming.The collection notices have started, and I generally don't see how I'll ever pay this off. I feel ashamed, even though I knew logically it wasn't my fault. I'm scared. And honestly, I'm a little hopeless.Is there anything I can actually do about medical debt this size, or am I just stuck with it forever? Thank you for any hope you can offer. That's one of those questions. You read that and you just feel empathy for this person.And yes, there are some things you can do. And I just want to say to you, first of all, I hope you've healed. I hope you're getting better. I'm sorry you've been on that journey.But the truth is there are flexible things. There's things that you can do. You're not stuck. Most people pay more than they have to because no one told them that there are actually options.So today I want to walk you through them one at a time. Number one thing you've got to do, you gotta verify before you pay anything. From personal experience, I will tell you this.Medical bills, notoriously, are full of errors. You gotta check every single line of them. When anybody sends you a medical bill, request an itemized bill.And I'm telling you, read every single line on it. There are duplicate charges. There are services that you never receive. There's obvious mistakes on all of those things.So number one thing, say to them, listen, I'd love to pay your bill, but I want an itemized receipt. And read that puppy I'm talking about from top to bottom. Take a magic marker to it, take a red pen to it, and if there's any issues, contact them.Second thing I'm going to encourage you to do is confirm that your insurance applied correctly so many times they won't even bill your insurance. Or your insurance will deny it because maybe you need to appeal that. Here's the thing I will tell you. A large share of medical bills contain errors.And if you fix them, if you get the insurance to review those and appeal those, it can slash the total. So, number one thing, never pay a medical bill you haven't checked line by line.Here's the second thing, and this is the thing a lot of people don't know about, ask for financial assistance and charity care.Many hospitals, and especially nonprofit hospitals, which a lot of them are nonprofits, are required by law or required by State regulatory agencies to offer assistance programs. Those assistance programs can reduce your bill dramatically, sometimes. Listen to me, even erase it.A lot of those are based on your income and your particular circumstances. Now, it's not like they've got this big advertisement as you walk into the hospital. Hey, don't pay here.No, no, you've got to ask directly for the financial assistance or the charity care application. Do yourself a favor. Even if you think you earn too much, ask the question.Because I have found that those thresholds are often higher than you expected. And that's the truth. You can wipe out an enormous bill for people who have simply asked for that. Again, hospitals don't help.They don't advertise this. You've got to ask for it. Now, once you've got that bill, you've asked for that. Now let's talk about negotiating the balance down.Yes, you can negotiate it. And a lot of people are surprised by that. The listed price. I know this sounds silly, but the listed price is not always the final price.You can pick up the phone, you can call them and say, listen, I can't afford this. Is there some way for you to reduce that? Can I pay you a lump sum of that?And you'd be surprised at what they'd expect or what they'd accept is far less than what. Because here's the thing.They know for the most part, if insurance doesn't cover it, there may be a long time before they're able to get that payment. So they're in a place to negotiate that. Be honest about your situation. Be honest about, hey, maybe you've had to downsize your job.Maybe you can't work like you were. Maybe you're still unable to work. Many places have hardship programs ready. That number on the page is a starting point. It's not the verdict.It's not the final number. Because with medical bills, and this is unlike most other bills, the first number is rarely the real number. But now I want to give you another thing.You got to be really careful, this one, they're going to pressure you to put this on a credit card. Don't ever put medical debt on a credit card. Whatever's left after you negotiate, you pull that red pen out. Knock those things out.Ask the provider for an interest free payment plan. Most of them offer that.They'll say to you, hey, if you want to offer a monthly payment, we'll do that over four years, five years, don't move it to a credit card, because if you do that, you're going to Add interest to a bad situation, Take a modest monthly amount directly to that provider. They're going to do it in a manageable amount and it's going to be interest free. Now, there are some rules for reporting medical debt.They're a little bit weaker than credit card debts. So keep it where it is. Keep it on the friendliest possible terms. Don't turn that no interest medical bill into a high interest credit card bill.I'll give you an example. I work with this older gentleman. He was working for a church that I did some work for and he had open heart surgery. And his bill was a huge number.I can't remember what it was. And he said, ralph, I was in between jobs. I didn't have insurance. And basically I picked up the phone and called the hospital. I pay $100 a month.They are never going to collect all this debt. But there's no interest. And he's making a way, he's doing something to pay it. And the final thing, know your protections and get support.A lot of people don't realize this. There's a lot of protections out there for medical bills. Learn those things.There's recent laws that limit how much and whether medical debt can even hurt your credit. Nonprofit medical bill and patient advocates can negotiate for you. Sometimes do it for absolutely free.And sometimes those advocate bills can be worth their fee many times over on a bill size. You don't have to face that $40,000 debt alone or uninformed.You got more rights and more help than the collection notices want you to know, because bottom line is you got somebody that wants to collect the money. Now, I want to go a little deeper here because you said you felt ashamed even though you know this wasn't your fault.So, friend, let me speak directly to that. There's no shame here. You got sick. That's not some moral failure. And God doesn't see you as a failure either. Here's what faith doesn't promise us.It doesn't promise us that those bills are going to disappear by morning. I wish it did, but it doesn't. It doesn't promise the process is going to be quick or simple.And it doesn't promise us that this season won't test you. It's already testing you. But here's what faith does promise us.You can hand this crushing weight to God directly because you were never meant to carry it alone in the first place. Scripture tells us very completely. It says, give your burdens to the Lord and he will sustain you. It's not some empty Mailbox.You just drop it in there. He holds you up under the weight of that.The God who was with you in the hospital bed when you were recovering for whatever you went through is also right there, standing side by side with you in. In that billing office. So ask him to help you find that next practical step.Help him to give you diligent hands and help to take some of that spiritual weight off of you. So set down that shame you were never meant to carry. Take that one call, take that one step at a time, and let God sustain you through it all.You're not being punished. You're not stuck. You have real options. The shame isn't yours to carry. The illness was never a choice.So make one phone call this week and you can start changing the whole picture. So here's your win for today. I want to encourage you if you're dealing with any kind of medical bed, I don't care how much it is.Request an itemized bill from the largest medical provider. Call the billing company, ask them for that statement. Ask them if they have financial assistance. Write down who you spoke to and what they said.I'm not about paying it off today. Just take that first step that often shrinks the bill. Here's the thing. I've noticed a lot of people just let it go and let it go.Catch those errors, claim what you can get, and see what you can actually resolve to get unstuck. Which leads us to our Bible verse today comes from the book of Psalms, chapter 55, verse 22.It says, Give your burdens to the Lord and he will take care of you. He will not permit the godly to slip and fall. What a reassuring Bible verse today. A burden you didn't choose.This verse says exactly where to bring it. Take it to the Lord. Now. It doesn't promise us that the burden is going to vanish. It promises that God carries you under that burden.Take that practical action and take that spiritual rest at the same time. It tells us in scripture he'll not let us be permanently shaken, even by a bill this size. Let's pray together right now.Heavenly Father, I bring before you someone buried under medical debt from an illness they never asked for. They're frightened, Lord. They're ashamed and they're weary. I just ask right now that you would lift that shame, Lord, and carry the weight with them.Give them courage to make the calls, Lord, and ask for the help that's there for them. Lead them to errors that could be corrected and help them to find assistance. If they qualify, Lord.Soften the hearts of those they negotiate with and replace that hopelessness with real practical hope. And Lord, sustain them under this burden the way only that you can do it. We ask this in Jesus name. Amen, friend.At the beginning you said you felt punished and hopeless. I truly hope today you feel like you've got a list of real concrete options.Because like I said at the beginning, medical debt bends in a way other debt doesn't. But you do have room to work here.So again, number one thing, verify the bill, ask for financial assistance, negotiate that balance, use an interest free plan and know your protections and get an advocate to help if you need it.Now, maybe you're going through something very similar or you've got a challenge, or maybe you've had a triumph and you want to share that with the audience. I'd love to hear from you.You can reach out to me by voicemail by going to financiallyconfidentchristian.com/voicemail we'll put that in the show notes, but again, that's financiallyconfidentchristian.com/voicemail thank you so much for joining me today. A little heavy today, kind of a tough thing to talk about, but I just want to always encourage you to stay financially savvy.May God bless you and you have a great day today.