You might find that thought to be impossible. They have all the money, what power do you have? Well, I was in those same shoes in January 2006. Tanner was born July 5, 2005. By my Health Insurance plan, I owed an unnamed hospital $2500 in deductible and co-insurance. I had received their love letters, threatening collection soon. I sat at my desk, credit card in hand and dialed the number for the “You better pay up Department”. I was ready to pay it all, or finance it all.Then the gal picked up and I felt a powerful presence telling me to ask “if I pay it all now, is there anything you can do to reduce it?” . I was shocked, I did not know where those words came from, but disrupting my shock was a quick “sure, if you pay today by phone, we can reduce it by 10%”. OK, that was a $250 net question for me. The presence was on a roll, so it asked “well I was thinking more like $1500”. Reality kicked in and she promptly said “I cannot authorize that”. The presence seized upon her wording and asked “well, is there someone there who is authorized to reduce it that much?”. Again, I was stunned when she said “well let me get my manager”. I was expecting “No” at any point here, but the presence wanted to take it all the way ”can you put him or her on the phone?”. That’s the fun part of the story, except to tell you, the presence pled a little with the manager and we settled on $1850-a savings of $650!!!

The mechanics of why a Hospital would do this are a little complicated, but in a nutshell. First, the Hospital does not want to finance anybody. Second, they had already be paid by Insurance for the large part of what was owed for the procedure, right. So, by reducing my portion a little, they get me off their books and do not have me moving into collections, which is additional cost to them. Do not tell everybody about this secret, just those you care about and love. J