My Family’s Medical Bills Have Tripled This Year. Here’s How We’re Managing

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Higher medical costs have been a burden for my family, but we’re making it work. Here’s how. 

It’s quite unfortunate that even with decent health insurance, the cost of medical care can be astronomical. Data from the Kaiser Family Foundation shows that 1 in 10 Americans owes money in medical debt form, and millions owe more than $10,000.

I’m extremely grateful that medical expenses have not driven my family into debt. I’m also grateful that we have cash in a savings account we can dip into if we can’t cover our medical bills outright. But a lot of people aren’t in that boat.

Meanwhile, a confluence of factors has caused my family’s medical bills to triple this year compared to last year — and we’re only in September. For one thing, we moved over to a high-deductible health insurance plan. While the upside is that we now get to participate in an HSA, the downside is that we have a $3,000 deductible we need to meet before our insurer picks up the tab for our medical bills.

And in case you’re keeping score, we met that deductible in full before the midpoint of the year. My daughter’s broken bone and her $850 orthopedist bill sealed that deal for us.

At the same time as our deductible went up, we found out my daughter needs glasses and my son is in the pre-braces phase at the orthodontist. But don’t be fooled — I’ve already managed to shell out thousands of dollars even though my son has yet to have any metal placed on his teeth.

All of these extra costs have been tricky to juggle. But we’ve done two things to try to make it work and leave our savings intact.

1. We’ve cut back on other spending

When you have kids, a mortgage, and car payments to make, there’s really only so much spending you can easily cut back on. But we’ve done our best to spend less on things like household items we don’t need, and we’ve put off larger purchases.

For example, we were going to get new furniture for our daughters so they could potentially go from sharing a room (and a bunk bed) to having rooms of their own. But given our medical bills this year, we decided it wasn’t the right time to spring for a few thousand dollars’ worth of furniture.

We’ve also tried to save in smaller ways, like being mindful of our utility usage. But in reality, it’s the “not buying things we don’t need now” approach that’s made more of a difference.

2. I’ve taken on extra work

This past spring, I told myself I was going to take it easier on the work front during the second half of the year. Then my daughter broke a bone and a series of other events transpired that left us looking at massive medical bills we weren’t expecting.

So now, my plans to cut back on work a bit are not a go. If anything, these days, I’m doing more than expected to try to give us leeway for additional medical expenses this fall and winter.

I’m grateful, however, that my line of work allows for this. And if it didn’t, my husband would potentially look into a side hustle if it came to that.

A tough expense to grapple with

Medical bills are not an easy expense to cover. If you’re struggling to keep up with yours, you may need to reexamine your spending and cut back if possible, or look to joining the gig economy to boost your income.

But it also pays to find ways to save on healthcare expenses. Ordering medications in bulk is something that saves my family money. And we’ve looked into other options for keeping our bills down.

My daughter, for example, needs to wear her glasses all the time, so if she breaks them (which has already happened once), we can’t just wait weeks for a replacement — she needs a spare pair on hand. But I bought her spare glasses from Warby Parker, which was way cheaper than buying a pair through our local optical store. (We got her first pair at the store where she had her eye exam because our vision insurance covered the bulk of the cost, but it won’t chip in for a second pair at all.)

There won’t always be an opportunity to lower the cost of your medical care. But when there is, I’d highly recommend taking it.

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