In the United States, healthcare is extraordinarily expensive and while there are programs like Medicare, Medicaid, and insurance subsidies that can help make it more affordable, many people go without insurance and find they are unable to avoid treatment when they need it most. 

What can you do if you need to be hospitalized for an illness, require orthopedic surgery after a car accident, or develop a serious health condition that requires costly tests and medication? Often, the only choice is to get the treatment and deal with the financial consequences later.

When You Have Time To Plan

Not all expensive medical care happens on an emergent basis; often people need treatment for serious conditions but have at least a little time to make arrangements. If that’s the case, one thing you can do is to ensure you’re receiving your care at a public hospital. Public hospitals tend to have more robust patient support programs, but even private facilities typically have a system through which you can apply for financial assistance, that can wipe out or reduce your bill.

Start With The Bill

If you’ve received urgent medical care that you know you can’t afford, one of the first things you should do is to carefully read the bill. In order to do that, you’ll need to request an itemized bill directly from the service provider. This action alone signals that you’re a savvy consumer and, in the course of generating the itemized bill, you’ll often find that some charges disappear.

Discharge Your Debt

Sometimes, especially if you’ve had a series of medical issues or interventions, the bills pile up well beyond what any planning or financial assistance can help with. If that’s the case, you may find that the only way to get your finances under control is by filing for bankruptcy in hopes of discharging your medical debt. This is only appropriate if you have a great deal of debt, including debt outside of your medical bills, and a trustee will still prioritize what bills you need to pay. Still, this pathway can help you restructure your finances so that your bills don’t just go to collections. 

If you do choose to file for bankruptcy because of your medical bills, you’re hardly alone. Research suggests that medical bills are the leading cause of bankruptcy, and that there are millions more Americans struggling with medical bills beyond this group. It’s a troubling trend, and one that the Affordable Care Act sought to remedy, but has not successfully resolved.

A Word Of Warning

While there are many ways to address your medical bills when they become overwhelming, one thing you should avoid doing is using a credit card to pay for treatment. The interest rates on credit cards are far too high, and even if you manage to put your bills on a card with a low introductory rate, you likely won’t pay it off before the rates jump. A better option is to arrange a payment plan with the facility that provided your treatment, which will allow you to pay the bill off over a longer time frame without using credit.

Finances shouldn’t be the first thing you worry about when facing a medical issue, but for many people, it’s the greatest concern. The more you know about our healthcare system, though, the better you can navigate the costs you’re presented with so they don’t leave you in financial straits.