High deductible health insurance is a great way to keep premium costs down for families who are willing to take a little extra responsibility with their health care. Using the current Health Savings Account (HSA) qualified plans in conjunction with actually building up an account to match the chosen deductible, keeps money in the hands of the consumer and stimulates an awareness of the actual costs of health care. Consumers should learn to ask price questions of their doctor, research average costs for procedures, crunch the numbers on their own plans, and become intimately acquainted with high deductible HSA qualified health plans.

As an example, our son had an outpatient procedure done this morning at a surgical center. We chose to have the procedure done there instead of at the Children’s Hospital after a brief discussion with the surgeon who was performing the operation. I simply asked him where would it be the cheapest for us if we were willing to self-pay? Too often, otherwise high functioning adults become mute in the presence of medical personnel and just flow with the system. A brief departure from standard protocol led to this decision for us that may have saved us several thousand dollars, and all it took was one question that had a limited downside of potential awkwardness with the doctor. We were forced to discover the actual cost of the procedure instead of depending on a third-party payer to take care of it for us.

Standard costs for most procedures can be found by looking into the CPT (Current Procedural Terminology) guides online which can be found with a simple Google search of “CPT Codes”. Warning, these costs are defined in terms of Medicare valued payments, which are significantly lower than what hospitals and clinics actually charge. The reason to use them is to get an understanding of where the break even or limited profit point is for the ever elusive medical billing world, which obviously gives some bargaining power with the billing departments. Another site that is helpful for getting a list of costs from hospitals in any given area is http://www.vimo.com/hospital/proceduresearch.php. Though they are trying to sell health insurance, it is an effective place to begin to understand average and above average costs, and hopefully begin to make informed decisions about where to have a procedure done. (more…)