How do you protect your ass(ets)?

[Lost_in_the_HTTP]

Had a medical event. Insurance company and hospital websites are confusing, but amounts of claims seems to be nearing $70 grand and may go over. So far (knock on wood) the vast majority of it is covered and I may only be on the hook for a few hundred.

This time.

But what about next time? My state is making changes and my plans will be adversely affected. I have no idea what kind of coverage I'll have next year.

One event can wipe out most or all savings.


Hospitals have Aid services that can help with bills, but they want your account numbers to verify assets. Not something I would be willing to do.

I hear about trusts and LLCs and all sorts of other things to protect your liquidity from medical bills. They say most medical bills no longer affect your credit rating. Bully, bully. But that doesn't stop them from billing and going to collection or trying to get paid in other ways. If you don't have it, you don't have it!!

They say they can't take your house. But they can put a lien on it. That can cause other problems. Both cars are 25 years old. They have little to no value to collection agencies, but will cost me if I need repairs, so I need liquid funds ... just in case. And yes, I need two ... just in case one breaks down and I can't get it fixed for a while.

Money needs to be somewhere I can get it, but they can't.



.

 

[WilliamM2]

I don't think any hospital can seize your savings accounts. Just leave it there.
And your insurance should have a max out of pocket, as per the ACA.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

What sort of medical problems have caused your $70K in claims?

I pay premiums for my Blue-Cross/Blue-Shield "Fed employee" group 104 policy. For being 75, I pay what everyone else does in Medicare premiums. So far, I have no expensive surgeries or pricey drugs. My brother, on the other hand, was indigent with a mere $1,100 in monthly SSDI income. the ACA kept him alive for four years, until his circulatory system gave out and he passed away beginning 2022. He really had good health care with the ACA.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

The intel I received about California has the state applying liens to real property to recoup Medi-Cal benefits. Other sources tell me they don't even bother looking at real property in a revocable trust.

I refuse to say "I was lucky" that my Moms died Thursday morning in her sleep. Or, I was willing to suffer the same burdens of the last six years for as long as I could keep her alive.

But the luck of it was this. Her Medicare Hospice Care kept her in the home, and was free under that program with great health-care workers. The VA paid for half of "aid-and-attendance" care, billed at a $35/hr rate for 15 hours weekly. We never had to significantly use her savings, and she never needed anything like a skilled nursing facility at $9,000 per month. And -- Geez! -- her health insurance program, subsidized by an employer-created fund from 28 years ago, was stellar. She never needed to apply for Medi-CAL. I'd hate to think of the stress it would've caused her in her earlier stages of decline, if she had not adequately prepared for retirement with good health insurance. She would just barely have been able to keep living in her own home if I hadn't moved here.

 

[Shmee]

Had a medical event. Insurance company and hospital websites are confusing, but amounts of claims seems to be nearing $70 grand and may go over. So far (knock on wood) the vast majority of it is covered and I may only be on the hook for a few hundred.

This time.

But what about next time? My state is making changes and my plans will be adversely affected. I have no idea what kind of coverage I'll have next year.

One event can wipe out most or all savings.


Hospitals have Aid services that can help with bills, but they want your account numbers to verify assets. Not something I would be willing to do.

I hear about trusts and LLCs and all sorts of other things to protect your liquidity from medical bills. They say most medical bills no longer affect your credit rating. Bully, bully. But that doesn't stop them from billing and going to collection or trying to get paid in other ways. If you don't have it, you don't have it!!

They say they can't take your house. But they can put a lien on it. That can cause other problems. Both cars are 25 years old. They have little to no value to collection agencies, but will cost me if I need repairs, so I need liquid funds ... just in case. And yes, I need two ... just in case one breaks down and I can't get it fixed for a while.

Money needs to be somewhere I can get it, but they can't.



.

I am not sure on how safe it is to keep it in the bank, probably depends. You could offload some savings into treasury bonds, that might be a lot harder for them to get, but not sure. Other options include physical cash, and hiding it somewhere, as well as sending money to an exchange and buying a decent form of crypto, such as BTC or ETH, which hold value fairly well. Make darn sure you control your own private keys, and get the crypto off the exchange into a safe wallet that only you have access to.