Having a child, or children, that is chronically ill can be an emotionally taxing experience. The number one focus is ensuring the health of the child and making sure that they continue breathing. There are so many terminal and debilitating illness that can affect children and lead to a long life of numerous doctors visits, health crises, and unexpected emergencies.

Although these experiences can be trying on a patient, they can also be trying on the family’s financial situation. Parents often are so focused on being their child’s primary healthcare advocate, that the finances of services is forgotten until they are hit with a very large bill that their insurance may or may not cover. Regardless if families are well off, or not, unexpected medical bills are enough to put anyone in a bind, especially families that absolutely have no means to handle the costs of their child’s healthcare.

Your attention should absolutely continue towards your child, but if your finances turn upside down, then you may not be in a position to help your child how you want to. Here are a few resources and some additional information on things to consider if you have a child who is chronically ill.

Costs of Healthcare

The costs of healthcare have been a long-standing debate in this country. Health insurance has a lot of power to determine who and how they are going to cover individuals. For someone with a chronically ill child who requires many medical interventions, these costs can balloon quickly. Unfortunately, most families don’t even know the costs of these treatments and services until much later on and by then, the bills could be somewhere in the one-hundred thousands.

Insurance is not something that families can rely upon entirely, especially with a child who is chronically ill. Medical services come with a charge for every single service, and these can add up, especially when your child requires different tests, surgeries and many other services during inpatient or outpatient care. Even if families have good insurance, the copay and the deductible can be enough to overwhelm family finances.

In addition to these direct costs, there are indirect costs that families don’t consider like the cost of missed work, childcare, and if a parent had to leave their job to be a full-time caretaker. These added costs can add financial strain that may not be noticeable until the family is in trouble.

Health Care System Finances

It’s important to understand how the healthcare system finances work in order to create a plan of attack to get your finances under control. It’s more effective to be proactive during these times and the best way to do that is to understand the nuances of insurance and what’s covered in your plan. Some common terms and definitions in healthcare finances are:

• co-pay: the part of the bill that you are responsible for
• deductible: the amount you have to pay before the insurance will pay for services
• referral: insurance companies may require that your primary care physician makes a referral to another doctor before they are willing to pay for it
• precertification: you must receive precertification for healthcare services before they are done or they may not be covered without it
• network provider: these are physicians and hospitals in certain insurance carriers network with whom they have created a relationship with and are the only physicians and hospitals whom’s services they will cover
• usual, customary, and reasonable: the amount normally charged by health care providers for treatments in the area that you live.

By understanding your plan and it’s policies you can save potentially several thousand dollars. Make sure to get a written copy of your policy from your insurer that provides the specific details about your plan. If your insurance company has a website, that’s an additional source for you to use and check out.

How to stay organized

Policies and bills can be very overwhelming and confusing. There may even be mistakes that could be costing you more money than you should be getting charged. Here are a few ways that you can keep track of your finances, policies, and any other information that may be relevant to hospital costs:

• Find and utilize the resources in your child’s hospital like a financial counselor or hospital business office to find out information about your medical expenses.
• Ask the hospital to assign a case manager to your child or or your insurance company.
• Make your child’s health care provider aware of your plans limitations and benefits that way you both can come up with a plan that helps your child and falls under your policy.
• Negotiate fees with doctors and hospitals and set up a realistic payment plan. You have more power than you think in terms of the costs of hospital services.
• Organize and keep track of every single health service that you receive and the fees for those services so you have all of that information in an easily accessible format.
• Know your rights as a health consumer and know that you can appeal the decision of your insurance if they deny coverage for certain expenses. Doctors can even write letters or help you appeal to get certain things covered, especially if they were deemed necessary.
• If your insurance company is unrelenting, then contact your state’s department of insurance, especially if you’ve already appealed denied or inadequate coverage.

The warning signs of financial trouble

There are a few warning signs that may appear that you are having financial trouble. If these signs appear it is best to confront them head on instead of procrastinating and avoiding them. If you are spending more than you earn, using credit and cash advances to pay for things, and virtually have no savings, than you may be in a financial hole, or heading towards one.

It’s essential you handle your finances quickly. You can work with a financial counselor and you can also work with the collection agencies and make them aware of your situation. They may have a plan or be able to work with you so that you don’t go into more debt and they can get their money back. Calling them and letting them know you’re willing to work with them will just make it easier to come up with a plan instead of looking like you’re hiding or running away from payment.

Resources for financial assistance

If you do have a chronically ill child, there are resources available to you. Diverse Health Services can offer our help with caretaking, transportation, and other daily functioning services so the working members of your family can return back to work.

There are also grants and funding available for families with chronically ill children. It’s important that before you apply to these programs, you read through the qualifications to make sure it’s a right fit. It’s also important that if you do receive funding, you write thank you letters and maybe even include pictures of your family so the staff and volunteers of those organizations can see what their hard work is going towards.

Here is a link to a website with more information on how to apply for grants and funding, as well as the names of various organizations that are designed to help families.