Whiteboard Wednesday: Surprise Medical Bills

In wellness, surprise medical bills are the new opioids, impacting an employee’s financial health like opioids might impact their physical health. How do surprise bills work? Typically, an employee enters an in-network emergency room (ER) or hospital, assuming everything is covered at in-network rates. However, it turns out the ancillary providers – radiologists, anesthesiologists, pathologists, and sometimes even the ER doctors themselves – are not part of the network.

If an employee signed the form contract the hospital thrusted in front of them, like most people do, they are also signing away their right to dispute the out-of-network charges. Those charges can often reach five figures for an ER visit!

Fortunately, this Whiteboard Wednesday will show how employees can avoid this entire nightmare scenario. Wellable’s guest speaker, Al Lewis, also provides a quiz to teach employees all about it as well as a workaround that can help them avoid surprise bills altogether. Thanks Al!