Online tools that provide assistance with paying medical bills.
A very costly and significant issue for consumers who are trying to manage their health care costs are medical billing errors. Even if you take steps to control your costs and pay your bills on time, if the hospital or medical provider does not charge you the correct amount or if they make some other type of error on your bill, the actions you take will not be effective. Many companies and online providers are now proving patients with more information, tools and resources in an effort to solve this problem.
Examples of these errors can include being billed twice for a health-care service provided to being charged out-of-network prices for in-network services. Up to this point in time it can be very difficult for patients to identify these mistakes. If an error is discovered on the bill, consumers usually have to take up the error and dispute it with their medical provider or insurance provider. This can often can be a lengthy, difficult, stressful process.
But you can get help online. Some online health-care services include :
SmartMedicalConsumer can help alert consumers to errors in their medical bills. The online service has sophisticated, automatic error detection software built in. This will notify users through a message box at the top of the screen if any potential errors are detected and it will also indicate where those errors can be found. SmartMedicalConsumer's technology works by learning from previous use and history.
It learns from previous entries by a user, what services are covered, by how much, and also the type of health insurance coverage that a patient has. It then uses that information as a comparison for when new entries of medical bills occur and it alerts the user to discrepancies in the billing or mismatches. In addition to this error detection tool, SmartMedicalConsumer also has medical-billing experts available that monitor an online forum for members to ask questions about their medical bills.
The company is dedicated to helping individuals manage their health care costs. It will help identify mistakes in doctor invoices, health care bills, insurance explanation of benefits, and hospital statements. The company offers most of its service online in an effort to make them as accessible as possible to consumers.
Revolution Health also offers a service to help control medical bills and health care costs. Many aspects are similar to what SmartMedicalConsumer has, but Revolution Health goes one step further by offering to call up insurance companies and fight over disputed medical bills on a user's behalf. Customers of this service must sign a consent form and fax or send over the applicable records to participate in this service.
You will be assigned to a highly trained case manager who will work on your behalf to save you money. So Revolution Health will both try to pro-actively identify the error using a variety of online tools and programs as well as challenge the error on your behalf.
Additional online tools and companies for consumers
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Program
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Features
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Cost
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MedBillManager
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Manages Medical Bills. Users can see what others pay for the medical services.
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$25 annually
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SmartMedicalConsumer
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Provides management of medical bills. Auto error detection. Online forum of experts
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Some services are free
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Revolution Health
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Processes and manages medical bills, offers personalized telephone service for health insurance and medical questions. Will contest bills on users behalf.
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$129 annually
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Quick Medical Expense Software
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Manages medical bills. Creates a family medical and prescription history.
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$50
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