There is a lot of misinformation out there about negotiating your medical bills. The truth is you can easily reduce the amount of money you owe to your medical providers. Even if you have health insurance, which requires medical professionals to provide service for a discounted fee, you still can lower your medical bills and save a significant amount of money.

When it comes to paying for your medical expenses, nobody cares more about that then you do. But on the other hand, medical providers understand that if you are unable to pay the full amount owed that they are better off getting some form of payment from you instead of a bankruptcy notice in the mail. Medical providers will negotiate with you, and here are some tips to help.

The first thing you need to do is immediately call your health care providers and tell them you are unable to pay the bill. Tell them that you need to go on a payment plan of say $50 a month. In the same conversation, also tell them that you have a family member that may be able to help pay some of the bill and not all of it. In most cases you will find that the health care providers will knock 35% off of what you owe towards your medical bills. Medical providers will do this even if you have health insurance that forced the providers to charge you a lower rate!

Now that you received your first reduction above, you need to let the health care providers know that you must first talk to your friend or family members. Tell them you will call back within three business days. At that time, it is time to get settled into the bargaining table. Call them back up and say you only have half of what is owed, and that coming up with half the money exhausted personal loans from multiple family members and friends. But let them know you are not going to do it unless the bill is paid in full. In most cases you will find that the medical providers will find it acceptable to have negotiated for 50% of the total bill. If not, you still should get a lump sum settlement offer which is better then the original 35%.

If you don't have money to pay all the medical providers, that is ok. Pick and choose which providers to negotiate with. In many cases you can negotiate with a few providers and use payment plans to pay the remaining bills you can't pay off. If your medical bills are simply too overwhelming to negotiate, bankruptcy may unfortunately be your best available financial option.