Happy New Year! Let’s Fight Bogus Health Care Costs in 2023

Now is the time to help working Americans combat unreasonable health care costs. I’m looking for courageous employers and benefits advisors to partner with me.

I love to help patients battle bogus medical bills and unreasonable health care costs and I respond to every inquiry I receive.

A few days ago, I heard from a woman who had what I’ve found to be a common question. She didn’t like that her medical bill included a $306 charge from a hospital, when she had not set foot inside a hospital.

Her email to me ended with a question that I hear quite a bit: “Do you think this is something I can fight and win?”

It’s common for employers and working Americans to wonder whether they can fight an inaccurate or overpriced medical bill – as if it may violate some sacrosanct hidden agreement we have as patients to keep quiet and pay up.

Here’s the short answer: Yes, we can ALWAYS push back against unreasonable health care costs. We must.

I dedicated my book, Never Pay the First Bill, “To anyone who’s been pushed around by the American health care system.”

When it comes to the high cost of health care – that’s all of us!

As we celebrate a new year and a new start in 2023, let’s unite to push back against unreasonable health care costs. There are some important reasons that employers and working Americans cannot wait to stand up for themselves.

First, employers and working Americans continue to pay more for health care and get less for their money. And it’s not justified. Experts estimate that our health care system may be wasting up to $1 trillion a year on unjustified prices, overtreatment, fraud, administrative bloat and more. The solution isn’t to continue making people pay more. The solution is to weed this squandered spending out of the system. That can be done when employers and workers come together to tackle the problem. Behavioral change is needed at both levels.

Second, if we don’t stand up for ourselves things will continue to get worse. There’s a witticism attributed to Einstein that applies: “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.” We’ve been taking a passive approach to health care costs, expecting policymakers or health care insiders to take care of it. They haven’t. The average premiums for family coverage are now $24,463, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. That’s 20% higher than the average family premium five years ago and 43% higher than a decade ago, the KFF reported.

Many employers and workers are bringing in the New Year with outrageous premium increases. At a recent speaking event I asked a group of brokers what type of increases their clients would be seeing in 2023. Some said their clients’ premium increases would be as high as 20 and 35 percent! Employers and workers cannot continue doing the same thing and expecting different results. This pattern has been established for decades. The data points are clear. Behavior needs to change.

The third reason employers and working Americans need to stand up for themselves gets back to my reader’s question. She wondered whether she could fight back and win. I called by book, Never Pay the First Bill: And Other Ways to Fight the Health Care System and Win. Those last two words in the subtitle – “and Win” – might be the most important. Yes, we can fight back and win. Individuals can save hundreds or thousands of dollars per health care encounter if they apply the principles and tactics in my book and my Never Pay Pathway health literacy videos. Employers can save exponentially more. My book contains many employer success stories, and you can also scroll through the case studies on the Health Rosetta site. It is possible to save big money on health care - without compromising the care that you need.

Employers and working Americans won’t get better health care for less money until they take action. That’s why I’ve called courage the most important ingredient to success. The solutions are available. But people must boldly deploy them. Those who overcome the inertia and apply the winning principles and tactics find that saving money on health care is more doable than people think.

It takes courage to take a different approach to employee health benefits. It takes vision and conviction. I’m looking for employers and benefits advisors who have these qualities and want to partner with Allen Health Academy to educate the workers on your health plans. This is a special offer, for a limited time. Sound interesting? Reach out to me at neverpay@marshallallen.com.

Let’s work together in 2023 to make a difference for your employees who are being pushed around by the American health care system.