Keep track of your bills!

[PJBinMI]

Last week I got a bill for a procedure, not cancer related, on my foot done in May, 2017. I was pretty sure that I had already paid a bill for that, and when I checked my paid bills, I'd gotten two different bills, in Aug. and Oct., for two different amounts, totallying almost $200. So I phoned the billing department today. The woman I spoke with had to look at alot of details in my account with them, but ended up telling me that the lab had submitted their bill "late," after bills had already been sent to Medicare, and said she would submit it now. That is fine for me, but I thought about all the people who don't pick up issues like this and just pay a bill without questioning it. When I mentioned that, she didn't understand what I was talking about. We live in the middle of the so called "rust belt" where poverty is rampant and alot of families struggle to pay their bills. So I am writing to encourage everybody here to figure out some method to organize medical bills and not pay for things that insurance ought to be covering. What has worked for me is copying my check register into Quicken on my computer and noting in the "memo" space what each medical bill is for, date, doctor, procedure, whatever info I need to remember to find mistakes like this and to track what is tax deductible. Quicken has a "find" function that I can use to track every check I have written to a specific provider. It ticks me off that vulnerable sick people have to think about things like this......!

[kit5]

figuring out bills and payment is almost a full time job!!! good for you!

[PJBinMI in reply to kit5]

That's sure the truth! The one task that my husband hopes I can still do as long as possible is all our financial stuff--paying bills, putting together what we need every year to do our tax returns, and so far I am more or less able to do that. I am grateful for calculators, Quicken, on line bill pay, but I sure hope that when I can't do it anymore I'll not care that he never balances the check book! lol We agree on the big picture about finances but handle the small things very very differently from one another, one reason I keep track of this stuff. It would drive me crazy to not balance the check book every month! And I am grateful that he doesn't object to doing almost all the vacuuming and mopping. I sure don't multitask like i used to! Chemo-brain -- never had real chemo, but hormonals do it to us, too.

[SeattleMom]

What great advice for anyone and everyone!! Thanks for sharing your experience. It's amazing the mistakes you can find--even on credit card statements. A good reminder to be ever so careful to review charges before you pay for anything. Thanks, PJB!

[ZakICarey]

I'm glad you've managed to solve your problem. Sometimes these bills give me such a headache, and I find it really hard to keep track of it, to be honest. That is why I use automatic billing software from probill.com/ , that can generate recurring invoices & accept payments automatically. It also enables me to generate invoices, process payments, and manage my accounts from a single user interface. I only select tax rates, late charges, billing cycles and simply tell the program when to generate invoices. Each unique invoice or statement can then be emailed, printed, or uploaded to our secure server for processing and mailing.