Tuesday, May 17, 2016

Remedy - Saving Patients Money By Finding Errors in Medical Bills

This is a sponsored post for Remedy. I have been compensated through the Chronic Illness Bloggers network. All opinions remain my own and I was in no way influenced by the company. As stated in my product review policy, my reviews will always be honest.

So many of us - especially those of us living with chronic illnesses like rheumatoid arthritis - spend huge portions of our budgets on medical expenses. For example, my family paid more than $8,000 last year, out of pocket. It's a huge portion of our family's budget, so it's not only responsible but necessary for me to try to make some sense of my medical bills to make sure we aren't paying more than we should.

But did you ever get an "Explanation of Benefits" in the mail and wonder what on earth it is actually supposed to explain? There's a billion numbers and charges and codes and, even if you can manage to divine some meaning from it, it often looks nothing like the actual bill when that arrives. Not to mention that every medical provider's bills are organized differently. In the end, even experienced patients can find it extremely difficult to identify errors and overcharges. And, unfortunately for us, overcharges are extremely common.

Remedy is a company that helps patients save money by auditing your medical bills for errors and savings. They'll also advocate for you with your medical provider in an attempt to reduce your bill. Remedy is free to try - if they don't save you any money there is no charge. And, if they do find errors that results in savings for you, they only charge 20% of what they save you with a cap of $99. Remedy says they find mistakes on 70% of the medical bills submitted to them, which results in saving the average family $1000 per year. 

This sounded like something that could be beneficial to so many of my readers, so I agreed write this post. Shortly after I had agreed, I got some pretty hefty medical bills in the mail - both for myself and my husband. So I decided to give the process a try myself. 

It's super easy to get started. I visited www.tryremedy.com, clicked "Get Started," and entered my cell phone number. Within a few minutes I got a text welcoming me to Remedy. I had to go back to their site to submit my credit card information, but remember that there is only a charge if Remedy is able to find savings and if they do it won't be more than $99, so I figured that was worth it. I also had to take a photo of my insurance card and fill out a form to give Remedy permission to speak on my behalf with my medical providers. 

After that was all set up I started texting with my Remedy representative. Submitting medical bills is super easy - you just take a photo with your phone and text it to your representative. That's it! And since my husband and I are on the same insurance plan, I was even able to send photos of my husband's medical bills. Then there was nothing more to do but wait and see if they found any overcharges!

Although Remedy did not end up finding any errors or overcharges on our bills, it was very comforting to know that a professional had double checked everything for free. I will warn that the process can take a while - because Remedy often has to submit a bunch of forms, make phone calls, write letters, and wait for responses - so don't expect a result right away. However, in the meantime, my representative was always available give me updates when I asked for them. They were also very patient in explaining when I had additional questions. 

Overall, I think Remedy offers a very valuable service to patients - and if I ever have bills in the future that I am unsure about, I'll certainly be submitting them to Remedy for a second opinion!

1 comment:

Lene Andersen said...

What a fabulous idea! You have to have a master's degree in insurance in order to penetrate the forms and codes, so this will be a huge help to a lot of people. Hope it results in some refunds for you down the line.