Doctors Are Expensive
We have no insurance, and my daughter was sick a lot this winter. We had to spend an obscene amount of money on doctor bills and medicine. Now she’s sick again, and not only am I taking her to the doctor for the second time in the past week today, but I’m also missing work for the second day in the same time frame. I would climb the highest mountain with nothing but my bare hands to keep my baby girl healthy and happy, so I wouldn’t dream of not getting her the medical care she needs. But it’s really taking a toll on the finances.
There’s gotta be some way to save money. I took her to the local health department when she was younger. But I quickly learned that even though the visits were cheaper, the majority of the time it was money wasted because they didn’t give her medicine that would take care of the problem until we had gone back about five or six times, if then. I’ve thought about getting one of those prescription discount cards to at least save some money on her meds. Some of them are free, so even if they didn’t save me any money I wouldn’t be losing anything by trying.
If anyone has any ideas about how to save money on doctor bills, do tell. If I run across any you can bet I’ll be posting them.
Make sure your doctor knows you do not have insurance. A lot of times they will give you a discount of some sort. But the doctor needs to know.
I use to work for a doctor’s office. If the doctor is informed of this, a lot of times they are more willing to work with you.
You may want to check to see if they offer insurance for children. (I think some states call it Medicare, or Medi-Cal, but each state may have a different name. Here in Arizona, it’s known as AHCCCCS.)
The federal government has required that states offer assistance to children that are underinsured. In my state, even if a child doesn’t qualify for their county version of AHCCCS, they may qualify for the state version of AHCCCCS.
I know it’s confusing, but you may want to google federal health insurance children for your state.
I found the name of the program is Medicaid and you can read about it at wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medicaid
Make sure to read the links at the bottom too because some states may have different rules than other states.
Hospitals and doctors may save you physically BUT they kill you financially.
We need regulations on hospitals and doctors. They are not regulated. They charge whatever they want…
In addition, Americans should stop abusing our law system. Americans are in a love affair with lawsuits. This raises doctors’ malpractice insurance premium. How unfortunate…..