By: Matt Cavallo

Raise your hand if you went to school to understand medical billing? My best guess is that the majority of you did not raise your hands.

Alright, this time raise your hand if you understand the difference between a medical bill and explanation of benefits. Again, my best guess is that most of you did not raise your hand.

An explanation of benefits (EOB) is a statement summary of charges sent by your insurance company about an episode of care. The EOB is an FYI of what is covered or not covered, but it is not necessarily an accurate reflection of your medical bill.

Your medical bill will always come from the facility that you received the medical service. These bills will state the billed cost (what the facility charged your insurance), insurance reimbursement amount (what insurance paid to the claim generated by the facility) and the patient responsibility (the amount you owe).

Now, the patient responsibility part of the medical bill requires you to do a double check to ensure that you are paying the correct amount. Often times the patient responsibility can be inaccurate if it wasn’t coded properly. This is especially true if you have some special situation like financial assistance for a specialty treatment.

Take me for example. For my MS medication, I have a financial assistance program offered from the pharmaceutical company that manufactures my treatment.

As an aside, if you are not aware whether or not your pharma company offers a copayment assistance program or if you qualify, that information is generally listed on the pharmaceutical company’s website.

Back to my story. So, the terms of my financial assistance program state that I am responsible for a $10 copayment for each treatment. Therefore, if I am billed $10.01, the medical billers are off by a penny and I can dispute the charge.

I started receiving bills that were over $100 per treatment. These bills also matched the responsibility on my EOB, so it stands to reason that I would be responsible right? Wrong.

I do have a background in medical billing. I used to manage a hospital clinic and we had this problem all of the time. The problem is that the financial assistance programs require a different workflow than traditional medical billing. A lot of time the billers are unaware of how to apply these financial assistance programs or they are not marked properly in the medical chart.

If the medical biller does not apply the financial assistance program to the bill, then an erroneous charge is generated. As a patient with a financial assistance program, you are not responsible for this error. The problem is that you may not always know that you are not responsible. You think that since the bill matches the EOB that it must be right. This is not always the case and it is contingent upon you to be your own advocate.

When I started getting these billing errors, I took action. I called the 1-800 number on the bill and I contacted my pharmaceutical company to let them know. My pharma company reached out to the medical billers and that bill was resent stating that I only owed $10!

Doing a double check, I saved myself $90. This has happened to me a couple times after the initial erroneous bill. Each time I called and each time I was only responsible for $10 per visit. By now, I have saved over $500 this year by doing my double check and not being afraid to pick up the phone and question the bill.

From my time managing the clinic to situations with me and my family, to helping friends of mine, there are any number of reasons why double checking your bill can be beneficial. One last story, my wife got billed an out-of-network lab draw for a well woman exam at an in-network facility, generating an over $700 bill. Bills are generated by computers, but people are in place if you have any questions regarding the bill. After we got over the sticker shock, I said let’s call. We were responsible for our $25 copay and that was all!

Being a patient with multiple sclerosis is tough. Don’t let medical billing errors make it any tougher. Remember to be your own advocate and if you are questioning a bill, don’t be afraid to pick up the phone and do the patient billing double check!

*Matt Cavallo was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 2005. Matt is an MS blogger, author, patient advocate, and motivational speaker. Matt also has his Master’s degree in Public Health Administration. Matt is the proud father of his two sons, loving husband to his wife, Jocelyn, and best friend to his dog, Teddy. Originally from the Boston suburbs, Matt currently resides in Arizona with his family. To learn more about Matt, please visit him at : http://mattcavallo.com/blog/