Do Your Medical Bills Seem Too High? A Patient Advocate May be Able to Help
You probably know someone facing crippling medical bills. Maybe you, or your family, have recently incurred bills for treatment that seem way too high. Over charging and wrongful denial of insurance benefits is a far more common occurrence than most people realize. So are human errors in a complex system of medical codes and insurance benefits.
When you pay for dinner at a restaurant you probably look over the bill for accuracy. We don’t want to pay for something we didn’t receive. Yet when it comes to medical invoices we often pay without question because understanding medical codes and insurance benefits can be difficult and time consuming.
A recently emerging industry called “patient advocacy” aims to help individuals and families facing ruin from medical bills. Because the industry is new, it is largely unregulated. Some patient advocates are licensed attorneys and others come from the medical industry itself. If you decide to work with a patient advocate be sure to check their credentials.
One advantage of hiring a lawyer as a patient advocate is that attorneys are governed by professional standards enforced by state bar associations. Also, there won’t be any questions of whether your advocate is engaging in the unauthorized practice of law. And importantly, a licensed attorney advocate can initiate legal proceedings if appropriate.
If you or your family are faced with medical bills that seem to high, you may be able to do some damage control with a properly skilled patient advocate. MedBillDefense.com recommends that your patient advocate be a duly licensed attorney.
Kevin Walsh
Lead Attorney & Owner
