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Drowning In Medical Bills And Credit Card Debt? Do This

Housing Relief
3 min read

Medical bills and credit card debt can make you feel as if you’re drowning. We’ll reveal some ways to negotiate your way into more manageable payments.

With rent, utilities, food, car, Internet, cell phone payments, and more, you already have enough financial responsibilities on your plate. Add in medical bills and credit card debt, and it’s easy to feel overwhelmed.

To help you overcome that frustrating feeling, here are some tips for negotiating your medical and credit card bills into lower payments. And once you see how communicating with such companies can yield positive results, you can try to do the same with your other bills.

Negotiating Medical Bills

If there’s one thing that can not only put you in deep debt but also lead to bankruptcy, it’s medical bills. And since they’re often so unexpected, expensive, and intimidating, you may think that negotiating medical bills isn’t an option, but it certainly is.

Both medical offices and hospitals negotiate bills all the time to make it easier for patients to pay them. To reach that goal, try the following:

  • Look over your bills – Before jumping into negotiation, you need a better understanding of what you’re paying for. As you check your bills to make sure they’re accurate, look for overcharges, double billing, medical coding errors, or charges for services you never received. If you find any errors, contact the medical billing department.
  • Ask for a payment plan – You could enjoy some relief by using a payment plan to pay off your medical bills over time. Even better, such plans sometimes charge zero interest.
  • Pay it off right away – This may not be an option for everyone, but if you have the savings to pay off your medical bills immediately, you could save as much as 40 percent, which is huge.

Negotiating Credit Card Bills

If you’ve never spoken to your credit card company, call them up now and try the following tips, as they could lead to debt that’s a lot easier to manage:

  • Get rid of late fees – Have you been a solid customer who always paid on time, yet you missed one payment and were hit with late fees? If so, contact your credit card issuer and ask to have that late fee removed. Such a move can work the first time it happens, but don’t make it a habit, as they’ll be less likely to remove subsequent fees.
  • Ask for an interest rate reduction – Here’s another move you can make if you’ve been a solid customer in the past. The lower the interest rate, the easier it’ll be to pay off your debt. Tell your credit card company you’ve been a good customer and would like to continue to do so, and they may lower your APR.
  • Ask about a hardship program – If you recently lost your job or have reduced income, a hardship program can lower your interest rate, fees, and minimum payment to lessen the load on your shoulders. Under such a program, you’ll probably have a structured payment plan that fits your income.

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