I recently got a bill for just over $500 for lab tests for anemia, after insurance paid over $1300.
Since I'm self employed and was ill, I didn't earn as much as I expected to either at the end of last year, or in the first couple of months of this year.
This means that my income is less than I estimated when I applied for my ACA insurance, and is in the range that would make me appear eligible for Medicaid right now. However, by the end of this year, I will still make about what I estimated on my ACA application for 2024. I want to stay with this insurance.
My hospital has a financial assistance program where I would be eligible to have my bill paid for 100%. Should I go ahead and apply for this program through Parallon? My concern is that my temporarily lower income will cause a problem, and I'll lose my ACA insurance.
The application asks for my income for all of las. year, and the last three months. Do companies like this report to the state or ACA?
Would I be better off to simply call the hospital billing office and ask them if I can negotiate the bill down rather than applying for the assistance? I don't know if I'm worrying about this too much or if it should be a real concern.
I already posted this question on the insurance subreddit, where I got several completely different answers. Thanks for any informed advice you can give me.
original posted by thebluemooninjune to r/personalfinance on Tue, 05 Mar 2024 15:38:21 GMT.