Episode 1005: When They Screw Up Your Money

[00:00:00] Scott Maderer: Thanks for joining me on episode 1005 of the inspired stewardship podcast.

[00:00:07] Stephanie Scheller: I'm Stephanie Scheller. I challenge you to invest in yourself. Invest in others, develop your influence and create your greatest impact on the world by using your time, your talent and your treasures to live out your calling.

[00:00:19] Grow yourself. Be inspired. Listen to the inspired stewardship podcasts with Scott MI.

[00:00:26] Scott Maderer: what's so difficult about that is a lot of times this now financial emergency is happening right alongside health emergency. That's part of what makes this so difficult. You're dealing with two different sets of stresses. You're dealing with two different sets of emergencies. It's why having someone on your side, having an advocate who can help with you and walk with you through it and help you.

[00:00:53] Welcome and thank you for joining us on the inspired stewardship podcasts. If you truly [00:01:00] desire to become the person who God wants you to be, then you must learn to use your time, your talent and your treasures for your true calling in the inspired stewardship podcast. We'll learn to invest in yourself, invest in others and develop your influence so that you can impact the world.

[00:01:19] And today's episode about investing in others through stewarding your treasures. I talk with you about why sometimes your healthcare can script your money. I talk about why that happens and some things you can do about it. And I also share how to approach the situation in a productive way as we talk about stewarding your treasures.

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[00:02:06] Those things that can happen is we can have a Vince in our life that really mess with our money. And one of them that I've seen come up is around health care and health problems. Given that Barbie was talking about being a health advocate. I wanted to talk a little bit today about how, what happens with our health can screw up our money.

[00:02:30] Now I've talked before about how our money and our health are tied together, but in this case, I want to specifically talk about what happens when for instance, you have a health situation that costs a lot of money and you've gone to the hospital. Maybe you've got a large bill and you. Pay it right now.

[00:02:51] I seen a lot of folks do things like put a very large medical expense on a credit card. And the problem is that now moves it from being a medical [00:03:00] problem to being a credit card issue. And the truth is usually you're better off dealing with it while it's in the medical system. And so I wanted to talk a little bit about what we can practically do when we have a large medical bill.

[00:03:16] And the first thing is to be proactive, to actually start having that conversation. If possible, before you get the bill. Now, obviously there are emergency situations where if you're rushed to the emergency room with a heart attack or after a car accident, you don't have a long conversation about the bill.

[00:03:33] They just treat you. But at the same time, as soon as you can, as soon as you get into a point where you can begin talking with the healthcare provider about what your options. About what the situation is about how much insurance you have or what you have available to you. If you don't have insurance begin to have a proactive conversation about what you can do to [00:04:00] minimize and pay for the situation without creating a situation where now, because of a medical bill, you end up declaring bankruptcy or having other huge medical problems.

[00:04:12] Yeah, our medical system is such that when they usually will treat you for an emergency situation, but then if you don't have insurance, it oftentimes can impact you negatively. Financially. I've seen more folks going bankrupt or struggling because of medical bills than almost any other financial situation.

[00:04:35] The big ones are credit cards, medical and student loans. But medical is for sure one of those, it happens because it's so integral to what we have to do. You're not going to ask questions about it. You're going to have the work done. You're going to have the operation done. You're going to have the healthcare done because [00:05:00] our health is so important to us.

[00:05:02] It's about our service. And there's nothing wrong with that. This isn't a bad thing, but how can we handle it productively? How can we handle it in a way that helps us get ahead of it? A lot of times too, it's about having the honest conversation. I've coached clients through going in actually showing their income situation, showing their financial situation, showing what their bills are, setting down and having a conversation with the hospital or with the doctor and just working out a payment.

[00:05:32] Oftentimes, they will work with you to come up with a plan that is fair for them and they still get paid and yet is also fair for you. And doesn't destroy your ability to actually survive. Remember most medical people, whether it's a hospital, whether it's a doctor have gone into the business because they want to help.

[00:05:57] They've gone into it because they care about people. [00:06:00] If you can talk to them as a person and talk to them about helping you, usually they will work with you to help. And it doesn't cost you anything because at the end of the day, let's face, it let's assume for a minute. It doesn't work that way. You can always go back to the other things.

[00:06:18] You can always go back to paying it in some other way, declaring bankruptcy, if that's the situation that you're in and you have to make that choice. But the point is you happen to the situation instead of the situation happening to you. What's so difficult about that is a lot of times this now financial emergency is happening right alongside a health emergency.

[00:06:43] That's part of what makes this so difficult. You're dealing with two different sets of stresses. You're dealing with two different sets of emergencies. It's why having someone on your side, having an advocate who can help with you and walk with you through it and [00:07:00] help you settle down and say, this is what I need to do first.

[00:07:03] This is what I need to do. Second. This is what I need to do. Third can be so in. Not because you don't know what to do, but just because there's so much that you're dealing with, cause you got to deal with your health and your recovery. And you've also got to deal with the now financial issues that come up.

[00:07:20] That's usually how people get into trouble. They're so buried with everything that's going on, that they ignore the bills. They push them away because they just can't deal with one more thing. And then by the time they go to deal with it, it's already turned into a big problem. They're already behind.

[00:07:37] They've already been not communicating. Maybe they've been ignoring the bills and ignoring the calls, and now they're cleaning up a mess instead of being proactive. The key just like Barbie was talking about the key to being your advocate for your health care is to be proactive and involved. The key for dealing with the financial implications of it is about being proactive.[00:08:00]

[00:08:00] And involved the key too, is to make sure that you're able to do both of those and maintain your health and your financial as well as your physical health through the situation. Thanks for listening.

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