THE 68 BILLION DOLLAR SECRET
Healthcare has a $68,000,000,000 little secret. So what in the world does this secret mean to you and me?
Here is my story.
When my mother was diagnosed with Lewy-Body dementia, I had no idea the struggle it would be to manage her care. But when the grief of losing my mother was put on pause as the medical bills consumed my father and me, something was terribly wrong.
Born and raised in a small farming community in Nebraska, my Father was hardworking, faithful, and honest. On a
fall morning, we sat at the kitchen table trying to solve
the equation of 32 bills, 65 explanation of benefit (EOB) summaries, endless pages of insurance policy information, and 7 “helpful” FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) sheets. The numbers just didn’t add up. As I looked at my father trying to make sense of all this paperwork, I knew this was a losing battle.
We were in trouble. I just started crying.
Dad had done everything right. He had worked hard, saved for retirement, and had solid insurance through
his blue-collar job of managing grain elevators. My parents were surrounded by generations of family and a supportive community. Yet here we stood at the crossroad of either paying a $35,000 medical bill or having my mother’s healthcare treatments stop. We were caught in between the double bind of bouncing between the healthcare provider and the insurance carrier. We were spending hours going nowhere. The question no one could answer was, “why did a fully insured person owe $35,000 during treatment?”
Savvy to the corporate world, I rarely take no for an answer. I thought my tenacity could manage us through the stress and the mess. But by late winter, I was pregnant with twins, 2,000 miles from home sitting in the administrative office of a large hospital in Rochester Minnesota. I waited all day for someone to answer one simple question: Why is my Mom’s insurance coverage being denied?
While I dug my heels into my mother’s care, my husband was busy doing research. He took the task of trying to find us help when there was none to be found. What he did find, however, was breathtaking. Investigative research exposing facts like 40% or more of all medical bills have errors. Fast forward to today, over 50% of all bankruptcies are due to medical bills, 62% of Americans fear to receive a large medical bill, and over 200,000,000 million claims are denied by insurance carriers each year.
As that fateful winter day was ending with no solution in sight, a different administrative staff agreed to see the “crazy pregnant lady” once again. As we sat down in her office she once again began to re-explain the situation. As I pleaded with her that we were being forced to pay or take my Mother home, I asked her to triple check the codes (there are now 68,000 diagnosis codes). As she sat looking at her computer, an astonished look came over her face. The hospital had coded her procedure as a psychological treatment. That misidentified code leads to a denial of insurance coverage that produced an unwarranted $35,000 medical bill my father was being forced to pay or take Mom home.
Over the 13 years of caring for my mother before the disease overcame her, we gained a lifetime of education on the secret side of healthcare that has lost a level of its compassion. We experienced a system that is complicated and expensive and where it seems procedures and processes are sometimes more important then wellness and care.
During this time, my husband realized there was one consistent and startling fact that we kept uncovering, many of the medical bills, insurance coverage denials, and costs during my mother’s care were wrong.
But, does anyone else realize this? How big is this problem? How many other families are battling just like us, or worse, how many have just given up and over-paid? How many families were unnecessarily forced to file bankruptcy due to these mistakes? We had to find out.
What we uncovered that day was a massive healthcare problem totaling over $68,000,000,000 a year in overcharges due to mistakes, errors, claim denials, greed, and fraud. Almost worse, according to Gallup, American’s fear a high medical bill more than terrorism, loss of job, retirement planning…more than any other issue facing American’s today. THIS IS BIG!
We must bring compassion and honesty back to healthcare.
Unfortunately, my mother’s story is all too common.
But what did emerge from our loss was HealthLock, our company that has helped over 100,000 families, seniors, stressed out daughters, grieving husbands and widowed wives uncover the truth. Our experts have saved our community over $50,000,000 in healthcare costs. Our claim denial appeals rate is 68%. Our member’s letters and testimonials continually share how they love the peace of mind of being protected.
Today, our personal mission is to verify every medical, dental, vision, and RX bill to protect our friends, family, and community. Our Community of Care can come alongside you to bear the burden of healthcare administration and show you our stress-reducing app features like real-time deductible tracking, one-click insurance policy coverage, medical record management, and much more.
If you download HealthLock from the App Store or Google Play and use referral code THETRUTH, you’ll receive a free medical bill audit covering the past 2 years. We’ve made
it really simple and you don’t’ have to send or upload anything. The app automatically downloads your claims, organizes them in an easy to understand format, and audits them for errors and overcharges.
The download and audit is free. See if you’ve been overcharged.
More importantly, join us in our mission to be part of a Community of Care providing compassion as we uncover the truth to healthcare costs. We have thousands of stories to tell and hope we can come alongside your healthcare journey.
Go to getHealthLock.com/thetruth for more information and learn how we’re donating 20% of your membership fee to support the mission of Project Forgive. And please know, Scott and I do not earn any income from your membership.