Debt Dumpers - 2016

[arlinar]

Starting to settle on some debt collections. Got two offers from two different debt collectors offering some good savings. Going to call both tomorrow and request things in writing before starting to give them money.

Pushed back my upcoming Disney World trip to next year Our budget needed it in order to do my son's birthday trip to Disneyland. Plus it gives us more time to save and allows us to do more pushing back the trip. We are making up for it by having a mini getaway to Vegas in November.

Maybe this next year I will be driving a better car and will have plane tickets purchased.

 

[DisneyMandC]

Anyone have experience with medical debt they can offer me? FIL is doing great, thankfully, and the bills are starting to roll in from his hospital stay. About a month before his heart attack, he had diverticulitis and a trip to the ER. Literally the morning of his heart attack, he received the bill for that. Less than 30 days after sending it, they were already contacting MIL about it. She told them she needed to get on a payment plan for it and the woman tried to tell her that she had to pay $475 then and $475 each month to qualify for a payment plan so she wouldn't be sent to collections. MIL told her that wasn't possible, but that she could pay something every month, just not that much. The lady acted pretty rude about it despite my MIL explaining the situation and said she couldn't guarantee the bill wouldn't be sent to collections. My impression from other friends who have had to do payment plans for medical bills is that as long as you get on a payment plan and make an on-time payment every month, they won't send you to collections. I think they're just trying to scare her into paying more, which isn't possible considering FIL is self-employed and does not have any sort of disability insurance. Any thoughts?

 

[Ngwira]

Anyone have experience with medical debt they can offer me? FIL is doing great, thankfully, and the bills are starting to roll in from his hospital stay. About a month before his heart attack, he had diverticulitis and a trip to the ER. Literally the morning of his heart attack, he received the bill for that. Less than 30 days after sending it, they were already contacting MIL about it. She told them she needed to get on a payment plan for it and the woman tried to tell her that she had to pay $475 then and $475 each month to qualify for a payment plan so she wouldn't be sent to collections. MIL told her that wasn't possible, but that she could pay something every month, just not that much. The lady acted pretty rude about it despite my MIL explaining the situation and said she couldn't guarantee the bill wouldn't be sent to collections. My impression from other friends who have had to do payment plans for medical bills is that as long as you get on a payment plan and make an on-time payment every month, they won't send you to collections. I think they're just trying to scare her into paying more, which isn't possible considering FIL is self-employed and does not have any sort of disability insurance. Any thoughts?

I do some consumer work and you are correct. As long as they make some type of payment, she should be ok. I would tell your MIL to speak to someone else in the medical billing department. The rep she spoke to sounds like a bully.

 

[Ngwira]

Chugging along here! Made another $1,000 payment on my car. Bill is down to $4500.00. Downside to throwing all this money towards debt is I haven't put anything in savings in two months, but I can't sleep well knowing I have all this debt out there. Hope to be done with the car loan soon (two months), and then I can attack the window loan.

 

[Gr8t Fan]

I do some consumer work and you are correct. As long as they make some type of payment, she should be ok. I would tell your MIL to speak to someone else in the medical billing department. The rep she spoke to sounds like a bully.

+1 . She needs to speak to someone else in billing to get a payment plan in place.

 

[DisneyMandC]

I do some consumer work and you are correct. As long as they make some type of payment, she should be ok. I would tell your MIL to speak to someone else in the medical billing department. The rep she spoke to sounds like a bully.

+1 . She needs to speak to someone else in billing to get a payment plan in place.

Thanks! Yeah, I didn't think that seemed right. One of my friends is currently paying on her husband's medical bills from a year ago and she said there's some months where she can only send $25 but they haven't taken any actions against her. I don't know what was up with this lady. My MIL paid the $475 that day, but that combined with whatever the payments end up being from his heart attack definitely won't be possible.

 

[Miss Whimsy]

lots of red numbers in YNAB this month. going to try to fix that now, but overall August is not getting off to a great start.

just need to recalibrate and keep chugging.

 

[Ngwira]

Orkin man came and said no evidence of termites so not sure what to believe. Only difference is hubby was home for Orkin and I was alone when terminix guy came. Maybe the guy was trying to pull a fast one because I am a woman? Kinda like how women tend to get hosed at the mechanics? I don't know..
I think a third estimate is in order based on all the uncertainty.

 

[MrsTurnerLovesDisney]

sooo the jack when out on our camper this weekend....the dealer place would charge about $350 to fix it. But we found the whole exact jack system on amazon for $180 so we are ordering it and doing it ourselves since DH knows how. So that saves a little but still ugh didn't want to spend that money.

A couple of good things looks like if we are conservative with Christmas that we can have it taken care of without much worry. We will have to charge some to CC but I get a free and clear 3rd check at the end of December that can pay off the balance so we can't charge more than that

Lastly student loans I've been on income based repayment plan it's time to renew. Because DH job situation has changed I figure the payments will go up a lot....and if I go the graduated option it looks like it will go up about $25 a month for a year and pay less interest so that sounds like the winner to me. Still going through the paper work now. Has a pay off date of 2024 but we have a goal to start snowballing next year and hopefully by 2020 have it done!

 

[DisneyMandC]

An old shoulder injury of mine flared up again pretty bad this weekend, so I'm going to an acupuncturist for the first time tonight to try that out and see if I can get some relief. It's a deep tissue/muscle issue so chiropractic hasn't helped. The appt is $90 but my insurance says it will cover up to 30 acupuncture appts per year. When I talked to the acupuncturist he said they don't take insurance there, but that he can give me the forms and codes I need to file the claim with my insurance. Anyone done something like this? I think I found the form to submit a claim on my health insurance website, but just haven't had to do it and didn't know how long it takes/if they try to be a pain about it. We have Aetna and have been happy with them and how they've paid out for past claims submitted by my doctor's office.

 

[Jen and Ashwin]

An old shoulder injury of mine flared up again pretty bad this weekend, so I'm going to an acupuncturist for the first time tonight to try that out and see if I can get some relief. It's a deep tissue/muscle issue so chiropractic hasn't helped. The appt is $90 but my insurance says it will cover up to 30 acupuncture appts per year. When I talked to the acupuncturist he said they don't take insurance there, but that he can give me the forms and codes I need to file the claim with my insurance. Anyone done something like this? I think I found the form to submit a claim on my health insurance website, but just haven't had to do it and didn't know how long it takes/if they try to be a pain about it. We have Aetna and have been happy with them and how they've paid out for past claims submitted by my doctor's office.

I would call your insurance company and make sure you do everything they want. I always need a referral from my primary doctor for anything or my insurance will not cover it.

 

[DisneyMandC]

I would call your insurance company and make sure you do everything they want. I always need a referral from my primary doctor for anything or my insurance will not cover it.

I know mine doesn't require a referral, and I don't have to choose a PCP, which is nice. If worst comes to worst I eat the $90 out of pocket, but it would be nice to get $60 back since my copay is $30. I figure I'll do one session and submit my claim and see what happens before I do anymore.

 

[AmyAnne]

I know mine doesn't require a referral, and I don't have to choose a PCP, which is nice. If worst comes to worst I eat the $90 out of pocket, but it would be nice to get $60 back since my copay is $30. I figure I'll do one session and submit my claim and see what happens before I do anymore.

It is really frustrating when the doctor's office and the insurance company don't cooperate. Just had to pay a cop-pay yesterday even though we have met the spending limit for the year and aren't supposed to have to pay anything. So now I have to call the insurance company to figure out what to do.

I do hope the acupuncture helps -- H has back pain from assorted things, and I have wondered if acupuncture would help. Let us know!

 

[Gr8t Fan]

Orkin man came and said no evidence of termites so not sure what to believe. Only difference is hubby was home for Orkin and I was alone when terminix guy came. Maybe the guy was trying to pull a fast one because I am a woman? Kinda like how women tend to get hosed at the mechanics? I don't know..
I think a third estimate is in order based on all the uncertainty.

I agree on the third estimate. Hopefully your hubby can be home for that one as well. I HATE when repair technicians try to pull a fast one.

 

[Gr8t Fan]

An old shoulder injury of mine flared up again pretty bad this weekend, so I'm going to an acupuncturist for the first time tonight to try that out and see if I can get some relief. It's a deep tissue/muscle issue so chiropractic hasn't helped. The appt is $90 but my insurance says it will cover up to 30 acupuncture appts per year. When I talked to the acupuncturist he said they don't take insurance there, but that he can give me the forms and codes I need to file the claim with my insurance. Anyone done something like this? I think I found the form to submit a claim on my health insurance website, but just haven't had to do it and didn't know how long it takes/if they try to be a pain about it. We have Aetna and have been happy with them and how they've paid out for past claims submitted by my doctor's office.

We had to submit directly to our insurance for acupuncture years ago for our daughter (probably about 8 years ago). We jumped through a ton of hoops and it still wasn't covered. But hers was for treatment of ulcerative colitis, so you may have better luck.

 

[DisneyMandC]

We had to submit directly to our insurance for acupuncture years ago for our daughter (probably about 8 years ago). We jumped through a ton of hoops and it still wasn't covered. But hers was for treatment of ulcerative colitis, so you may have better luck.

Ugh, that stinks. I hope she got some relief though! I was impressed that my insurance even offers to cover it. It says I can 30 visits per year.

 

[Gr8t Fan]

Ugh, that stinks. I hope she got some relief though! I was impressed that my insurance even offers to cover it. It says I can 30 visits per year.

Times have definitely changed as far as insurance goes. Ours covers acupuncture now as well. Fortunately, she's been in remission for about 6 years now (knock on wood) and completely med-free and symptom free since then.

Good luck with your insurance. Hopefully, since it's specifically stated that they cover 30 visits, you won't have any trouble getting reimbursed.

 

[Ngwira]

Ugh, that stinks. I hope she got some relief though! I was impressed that my insurance even offers to cover it. It says I can 30 visits per year.

Do you have an FSA?

 

[Ngwira]

Been saving random expense checks for the past two weeks and so far have $400.00 to cover tips, gas and souvenir money for our vacation. Signed up for EZ pass using an AMEX offer which is giving us a 10 percent discount on our tolls from NJ to VA to catch the Amtrak autotrain. We are staying one night in VA before we catch the train on a cash and points rate. So $35 out of pocket for a Sheraton stay. Now I don't have to pull money out of our account which is great.
I also have $1450.00 in gift cards to cover our 5 ADR's in the parks. We are eating at Narcoosees twice and Via Napoli twice. Our last ADR is at Sci Fi Dine in. The rest will be counter service. Our cruise is all inclusive and tips are paid!

September is a 3 paycheck month so hoping to get rid of the car loan sooner rather than later.

 

[Ngwira]

I agree on the third estimate. Hopefully your hubby can be home for that one as well. I HATE when repair technicians try to pull a fast one.

I'm going to go with a local exterminator this time, as opposed to a big chain. I'd love to save money by not having to do anything but also don't want to be pennywise but pound foolish.