So I’m starting to get my health in order for the first time, and I generally have never gone to the doctor before or used my insurance over the past decade.
I have a high deductible plan and an HSA. The HSA has a ton of money in it so I’m not really concerned if I have to pay, but more generally trying to understand how this all works. The insurance plan covers 100% of preventative care visits including an annual physical, well woman exam, and dental cleanings every 6 months. Otherwise my deductible is several thousand dollars.
Recently I have gone to doctors for the following reasons:
Dentist appointment
Annual physical where they ran blood test and then had me come back for test results discussion
Gynecologist visit for well woman exam and they ran some miscellaneous blood tests
In all 3 of these cases, I now recieved the billing summary from Aetna which shows lots of costly services and many of them show not covered by insurance so there is a few hundred dollars saying it counts towards my deductible and shown as estimated to be owed by me.
For example the appointment I explicitly booked as an annual physical includes billed items like diagnostic tests, an office visit, and it does show preventive care visit too (there are like 20+ items but some just seem to be for separate things from blood test, and many show $0). In total it shows my total cost as around $200 (they billed ~$1700, insurance paid $260, and “your total cost” is $200,” I think in part because in network/insurance discounts). I am guessing maybe the office visit is the time I came back to discuss the lab results from the physical? But this was described as required and I thought it was part of the physical. In any case, I have not been billed anything, it has been about a month, I have not called them yet.
Similarly, the dentist appointment was several months ago and the insurance website shows some money not covered by insurance and under “your total cost” but I was never billed anything. Standard dental cleaning and they did some xrays.
Similar situation for the obgyn appointment a few months ago, a few hundred dollars show owed by me but also I was never billed anything.
I guess my question is, how common is it to not be billed by things the insurance company shows me as owing according to the billing info they have? Like, do doctors commonly “waive” patients’ costs not covered by insurance if the intent was clearly a preventative care visit? Are they just trying to max out their insurance payments by billing other things? Which I guess could probably be correctly described as other things so aren’t necessarily billing errors per se but aren’t services I requested and were implied to be required aspects of the preventative care visits? Especially as someone who has not gone to the dentist or doctor at all in adulthood until now I have no idea what services are standard in a preventive care visit. Should I expect surprise bills of several hundred dollars eventually, or is there a time period after which they typically bill you by?
I know I can probably just call and ask but I don’t want to “remind” them to bill me for something they weren’t planning to bill me for, if that makes sense? But I also don’t want something to suddenly hit collections and my credit report in case there are actually outstanding bills I don’t know about? I assume they would mail or call me if there was a bill?
Thanks for guidance.
submitted by /u/Wqo84
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So I’m starting to get my health in order for the first time, and I generally have never gone to the doctor before or used my insurance over the past decade. I have a high deductible plan and an HSA. The HSA has a ton of money in it so I’m not really concerned if I have to pay, but more generally trying to understand how this all works. The insurance plan covers 100% of preventative care visits including an annual physical, well woman exam, and dental cleanings every 6 months. Otherwise my deductible is several thousand dollars. Recently I have gone to doctors for the following reasons: Dentist appointment Annual physical where they ran blood test and then had me come back for test results discussion Gynecologist visit for well woman exam and they ran some miscellaneous blood tests In all 3 of these cases, I now recieved the billing summary from Aetna which shows lots of costly services and many of them show not covered by insurance so there is a few hundred dollars saying it counts towards my deductible and shown as estimated to be owed by me. For example the appointment I explicitly booked as an annual physical includes billed items like diagnostic tests, an office visit, and it does show preventive care visit too (there are like 20+ items but some just seem to be for separate things from blood test, and many show $0). In total it shows my total cost as around $200 (they billed ~$1700, insurance paid $260, and “your total cost” is $200,” I think in part because in network/insurance discounts). I am guessing maybe the office visit is the time I came back to discuss the lab results from the physical? But this was described as required and I thought it was part of the physical. In any case, I have not been billed anything, it has been about a month, I have not called them yet. Similarly, the dentist appointment was several months ago and the insurance website shows some money not covered by insurance and under “your total cost” but I was never billed anything. Standard dental cleaning and they did some xrays. Similar situation for the obgyn appointment a few months ago, a few hundred dollars show owed by me but also I was never billed anything. I guess my question is, how common is it to not be billed by things the insurance company shows me as owing according to the billing info they have? Like, do doctors commonly “waive” patients’ costs not covered by insurance if the intent was clearly a preventative care visit? Are they just trying to max out their insurance payments by billing other things? Which I guess could probably be correctly described as other things so aren’t necessarily billing errors per se but aren’t services I requested and were implied to be required aspects of the preventative care visits? Especially as someone who has not gone to the dentist or doctor at all in adulthood until now I have no idea what services are standard in a preventive care visit. Should I expect surprise bills of several hundred dollars eventually, or is there a time period after which they typically bill you by? I know I can probably just call and ask but I don’t want to “remind” them to bill me for something they weren’t planning to bill me for, if that makes sense? But I also don’t want something to suddenly hit collections and my credit report in case there are actually outstanding bills I don’t know about? I assume they would mail or call me if there was a bill? Thanks for guidance.
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