Drowning In Bills!

I have shared publicly how Superstar is going to be having surgery and how we have been in and out of Doctor offices over the summer, not only that but he has had some testing done MRI, EMG, X-rays, etc.

All of these things can be read about here: Toe Walking.

What I haven't shared is how we are now drowning in medical bills! Oh we have insurance!! He just have one of those HIGH deductible plans that make us pay $5,000 OUT of pocket, every CALENDAR year, before the insurance will pay anything.

My husband's employer did offer us the option of a "traditional" insurance plan, but we chose not to take it. After all we are young, our kids are young, and for the most part we are a healthy family! Up until this last summer the only time we were at the doctor's office was for our yearly physicals. (The insurance will pay for a yearly physical so that's ALWAYS FREE for us). So it just made sense to get the high deductible plan.

We haven't even had the surgery yet and have already reached our deductible for THIS CALENDAR year, so any medical bills between NOW and Dec 31st will be covered 100% by insurance. However anything that happens Jan 1 or later we will have to pay for again, until we reach our $5,000 deductible.

So you can imagine my relieve when they said that Superstar would have to wear the cast for 4-6 weeks and not the 6-8 like they originally said. With luck the braces and everything should be done by the first weeks of December if NOT sooner!!

Of course there will be some follow ups after the first of the year, but office visits are cheaper then surgery, castings, custom made braces, etc. We are still hoping and praying that most of the expensive things will be done before the end of year!

$5,000 is a LOT of money already and we are drowning, but we would be drowning more if say we waited until AFTER the first of the year; seeing we would have to meet our deductible AGAIN!!!

I know we will be okay!!! I just had to share, because the bills are here one after another. It's just been stressful! I know we are okay and will be okay. It's just amazing what the cost is!!!

Oh and seeing we do have insurance it does get submitted to insurance and we do get a preferred provider discounts applied. Those discounts are applied and then the balance is what we are charged and what gets applied to our deductible.

For example we have 3 different bills for the MRI! One of those bills alone was $3,000. The preferred provider discount was applied, thus the bill was $1,500. So we had to pay $1,500  and that $1,500 was applied to our deductible.  That means if we did not have insurance we would have had to pay $3,000. Did you noticed that the preferred provider discount cut the bill in half? No wonder medical bills are the number one reasons people are in debt!!!