Here's how
to lower your medical expenses without skimping on care.
Veneta Lusk • February 10, 2021
If you suspect health
care costs are rising faster than your paycheck, you’re not wrong. According to the
Kaiser Family Foundation, average family health care premiums increased 55%
from 2010 to 2020, while wages rose just 27% during the same period.
Even though employers
pick up part of the tab, workers on average contribute $5,588 per year toward
the cost of family coverage as of 2020.
There are several ways to
save on your medical bills without sacrificing care. Here’s how to take control
of your family’s health care costs and save money.
1. Check prescription savings websites
Consider using a website
like GoodRx to
find your medications cheaper.
The website allows a
shopper to compare the cost of prescriptions across pharmacies in the shopper’s
area. Since there is no regulation of prescription drug prices, the cost of any
given drug can differ greatly from one pharmacy to another.
GoodRx says its customers
save up to 80% on prescriptions.
Check out other great
websites that can save you money on medications in “5 Websites You
Should Check Before Buying Prescriptions.”
2. Pay the cash price for prescriptions
Sometimes the cash price
for a drug — meaning the price a pharmacy charges to customers without
insurance — is even lower than an insurance copay.
So if you currently pay a
copay for a medication, it’s worth finding out whether the cash price is better
at your current pharmacy or other pharmacies in your area.
Money Talks News managing
editor Karla Bowsher pays out of pocket for some of her prescriptions, as
opposed to presenting her insurance card and paying the insurance copay. This
saves her 50% every time, as she details in “5 Ways I Slashed
My Drug Costs up to 50%.”
3. Consider a direct primary care practice
What if you could pay one
monthly price to get access to your doctor as often as you want? This is the
idea behind direct primary
care practices, which can be found in many large metropolitan
areas.
Direct primary care
practices operate on a Netflix subscription model — essentially, you pay one
monthly, quarterly or annual fee whether or not you use the service. You don’t
have to worry about insurance or deductibles.
4. Shop around for procedures
Shopping around for
medical procedures can save you a bundle. This is especially true for major
procedures, where the difference in cost among providers can be thousands of
dollars.
Most people with private
health insurance don’t research prices before going in for a major
procedure, as we have
reported.
Don’t just assume the
facility your doctor recommends has the best price. Pick up the phone and call
providers in your area that accept your insurance and offer the medical
procedure you need.
You can also go online
and use a free price transparency tool to estimate costs. Such sites include:
Seniors should also check
out Medicare’s Procedure Price
Lookup tool.
5. Negotiate
If you need a service
your insurance won’t cover, don’t just accept that you have to pay the cost in
full. Medical providers sometimes accept a lower payment for a service if they
do not have to go through an insurance company.
Tell the medical office
that you’re paying cash for a service and ask for a discount. Besides a lower
bill, you might be able to negotiate a no-interest payment plan to spread your
payments over a few months.
6. Sign up for a flexible spending account (FSA)
Even with insurance,
health care costs can add up. Paying for medical expenses with pretax dollars —
which flexible spending accounts (FSAs) enable you to do — means a nice
discount on medical expenses.
If your employer offers
an FSA for medical expenses, consider signing up. For 2021,
you can contribute up to $2,750 a year in pretax income to an FSA and use it to
pay for prescriptions, doctor visit copays, medical procedures and more.
7. Sign up for a health savings account (HSA)
For those with
high-deductible insurance plans, opening a health savings account (HSA) may be
an option.
Just like FSAs, you can
fund an HSA using pretax dollars. However, HSAs offer two advantages over FSAs
— higher contribution limits and the ability to carry over your HSA balance
from year to year.
HSA contribution
limits for 2021 are $3,600 for an individual and $7,200 for a
family.
To learn more about HSAs,
check out “3 Ways a Health
Savings Account Can Improve Your Finances.”
Disclosure: The
information you read here is always objective. However, we sometimes receive
compensation when you click links within our stories.
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