Try these 7+ tips to save money on medical bills and prescriptions
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with tips to cut costs across several categories. We’ll be adding new stories often.
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With inflation rising, we’re all looking for ways to save a little money and keep our budgets in check.
The News & Observer’s service journalism team is putting together a free Money-Saving Series with tips to cut costs across several categories.
In this installment, we’re offering up tips to save money health care costs, including medical bills and prescriptions. We’ll update this story with good tips we get from readers.
1. Learn the details of your insurance plan
If you have health insurance — and this advice applies to dental and vision insurance, too — one of the best ways to save on health care costs is to familiarize yourself with your plan and what it covers.
▪ How many visits per year with your primary care provider does your plan cover? Are specialist visits covered? What’s your copay? How about your deductible? Getting familiar with your insurance plans and answering these questions can help you avoid unexpected costs.
▪ Finding the answers to these questions and others may take some research on your part, but it will be worth it in the end and help you keep your medical costs in check. If you can’t find an answer online, try reaching out to your insurance provider by phone.
Knowing what your plan covers can also allow you to squeeze the most out of your coverage and get more bang for your buck.
▪ For instance, maybe your plan covers a certain amount of mental health care or visits with other specialists outside of your primary care provider.
▪ Some plans may even offer discounts for you to use on other expenses in your life not directly related to health care, such as a gym membership or meal kit delivery services.
Once you know what your plan covers and includes, get the most out of your plan by making it a point to use the benefits throughout the year.
What’s covered under your insurance policies can change from year to year, so make it a point to refamiliarize yourself with your plan — especially if you’ve switched plans or insurance providers — at the start of each year, or whenever your plan begins.
2. Find out which providers are in-network with your insurance
Along the lines of getting to know your insurance plan, you should know which providers — that includes doctors, hospitals and pharmacies — are in-network with your insurance.
When a health services provider is in-network with your insurance, it means that the provider and insurance company have contracted to give you a discounted rate for services. If a provider is out-of-network with your insurance, you will not receive the discounted rate and will pay a higher price for the services you receive.
Before you make a doctors appointment, have a prescription filled or receive any other medical care, verify with your insurance that the provider you are seeing is in-network. Many insurance providers have tools on their websites or mobile apps to help with this process.
3. Know what you can get free with the Affordable Care Act
Under the Affordable Care Act, some preventative health care services are completely free and require no copay or out-of-pocket expenses.
You should double-check your plan to see what services are covered, but ACA plans should include:
▪ Free vaccinations, such as flu shots
▪ Free blood pressure screenings
▪ Free HIV prevention medication
▪ Free depression screenings
▪ Free cancer screenings
▪ Free well-child visits
Learn more about what ACA plans cover at healthcare.gov/coverage/preventive-care-benefits.
4. Shop around for the best price on treatments & procedures
Even if you’re using an in-network provider, prices may vary from provider to provider.
“You can find doctors in the same area and network with different fees, so it’s important to shop around,” WebMD says.
Your insurance provider may provide a tool, likely on their website or in their mobile app, that allows you to compare or estimate prices between providers.
You should make sure that the prices being offered by different providers will give you the same quality of treatment and the same services you need — but if the only difference between the providers is the price, going with the cheaper option may be the right choice for you.
5. Find free or low-cost health clinics near you
If you don’t have insurance, or if you’re just looking for low-cost treatment or preventative services, most local health departments offer clinics for the public.
Many services offered at the clinics are based on family income or use a sliding scale. Some services may be free.
Learn more about the services offered by local health departments in the Triangle, including the cost of services, using these resources:
▪ Wake County — wakegov.com
▪ Durham County — dcopublichealth.org
▪ Orange County — orangecountync.gov/919/Clinic---Medical
▪ Johnston County — johnstonnc.com/health
If your local health department doesn’t offer the services you’re looking for, they may be able to connect you with other free or low-cost health care services in your community.
6. Try paying with cash and negotiating
Whether you have insurance or you don’t, some providers may offer discounted rates for procedures and tests if you self-pay with cash instead of using your insurance.
Before you schedule a procedure or test, ask your provider if they offer a cash discount. If they don’t, you might try shopping around for another provider that does.
WebMD says it’s still important to have health insurance for most health services, but paying with cash could be a good option for services like:
▪ Prescription drugs
▪ Physical therapy
▪ Out-patient surgeries
▪ Some blood tests
▪ X-rays
▪ Ultrasounds
▪ Computed tomography scans, or CT scans
7. Buy generic drugs instead of name brand
There are generic options for most prescription drugs.
Before you get your prescription filled, talk with the provider who prescribed the drugs and see if there is a generic option available for what you’ve been prescribed. You can also consult your pharmacist about this.
You should check with your insurance to see if the generic brand is covered under your plan — but name brand drugs generally have higher copays and cost more, WebMD says, so opting for a generic version can save you money.
The same applies to over-the-counter medicines. Comparing prices between the generic or store brand and the name brand, then opting for the cheaper option, can save you money on basic medicines like pain relievers.
Share your money-saving tips with us
Have a tip for saving money? Share it with us in the form below, or try accessing the form here.
We might use your tips in a future story.
This story was originally published June 23, 2022 at 3:17 PM with the headline "Try these 7+ tips to save money on medical bills and prescriptions."
