It requires a foresight to plan for your health expenditures which may occur in the future as it is a natural human tendency to skip expenses which are not currently required. However, it is a proven fact that such petty allotments save huge medical bills in the future as each one of us are vulnerable to get sick at some point of time in our lives. Everyone should pay attention towards the common norms in insurance industry to stay safe. Allocating a certain amount for paying insurance premiums from your hard- earned money is not less than a budget adventure and what if you do not get the best for this effort when it is actually required?
Well, there may be a question as to what can be the possible scenario to not get the best benefit after all the attempts of paying regular insurance premiums? Fraudulence!! You read that right!! Patients are the soft targets who get exploited as, at the time of emergency, the main concern of the patient’s family is the health of the ill person. Ultimately, it is your premium that is going to increase with every rise in your medical bill. Let’s first understand the possible areas to get deceived in order to prevent health insurance frauds with little awareness.
- Medical Packages: Packages are intelligently framed in a way that patients end up getting the investigations done which are often less required. Simultaneously, you may miss a necessary investigation if it is not in the package. The packages are undoubtedly economical but are prone to be deceiving.
- Incomplete Claim forms: You may be kept in a situation where you are unsure of the possible expenditure. Therefore, you may be compelled to leave the claim form incomplete to add the additional expenses which may be incurred later.
- Multiple Claim Forms in Single Visit: Not every hospital has this practice, but there are hospitals which take multiple signed claim forms from patients on the pretext of different possible scenarios.
- Unused Services After Pre-Authorization: There are times when you don’t have to obtain medical services even after getting an authorization from your insurer. This is a convenient situation for some health care providers to exploit patients and insurance companies.
- Billing Unused Services: Hospital disposables and investigations are the key areas where you generally skip monitoring enabling the crew to bill you for unused equipment, services and investigations. But you can always prevent health insurance frauds with a little awareness.
Ways to prevent health insurance frauds by staying awake
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Get to Know About the Required Investigations: One of the best way to prevent health insurance frauds is that against the general belief that packages are economical, you end up paying more for the unnecessary medical tests included in the list. Discuss with your doctor and know the importance of each investigation in establishing a diagnosis of your condition.
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Don’t Ever Leave a Claim Form Incomplete: Make sure you close the list with a cross for unnecessary services before you sign a claim form. The crew may add some expenses later if the space is not cut off. This way you can prevent health insurance frauds.
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Inform Your Insurer if Pre-Authorized Services are Unused: It is a positive factor if you don’t need to take expected services but inform the same to your insurer so that the hospitals cannot charge you for them.
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Sign One Claim Form Only Per Consultation: Keep it in mind that more the medical bills, the higher the premium! Include all the aspects in one claim form per visit.
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Check the Bill Before Finalizing: This is the vital part to stay safe in your medical insurance tenure. It is your right to question the hospital authorities and the hospital is accountable for every penny they charge. Check the bills thoroughly to question the incorrect and unauthorized charges. Try to get the claims authorized by your insurer before visiting a hospital and check the investigation and billing procedures to ensure better insurance claims with rewarding premiums and prevent health insurance frauds.
After all, you and your insurer are in an agreement and both of you should be in a harmonious relationship to protect your mutual interests. To ensure this, save your insurer from unnecessary expenditure from the hospital’s end to secure lower premium amounts and higher insurance benefits. All this can be attained with a little awareness to prevent health insurance frauds and hope this article helps in educating you about the fraudulent norms in the insurance industry.