Wellness That Matters: Black Health News & Community Care
- Find out what your insurance covers for free: confirm preventive services under the Affordable Care Act and ask your doctor to code visits as preventive.
- Check whether you've met your deductible and schedule needed care before year-end so insurance starts sharing costs when close.
- Know your right to appeal denied claims: request an internal appeal, then a external review; decisions are binding and often overturned.
April is Financial Literacy Month. Your health and your wallet are more connected than you think.
Spring has a way of making us want to reset. We clean out closets, refresh our routines, and shake off the heaviness of winter. But there’s one area that often gets overlooked in the seasonal reset: the money we spend on our health.
April is Financial Literacy Month, and at the Black Women’s Health Imperative, we think that’s the perfect reminder to take a closer look at how healthcare costs are shaping our financial lives. Between rising premiums, climbing deductibles, and a system that often feels designed to confuse rather than clarify, it can be hard to know where to start.
So we put together five practical, low-pressure ways to make your health dollars stretch further this spring. None of these require a financial advisor or a perfect budget. Just a little time and the knowledge that you deserve to get every bit of value out of what you’re already paying for.
1. Find Out What Your Insurance Covers for Free
This one surprises a lot of people. Under the Affordable Care Act, most insurance plans are required to cover a range of preventive services at zero cost to you, meaning no copay, no deductible, no bill. We’re talking annual wellness visits, blood pressure screenings, cholesterol checks, mammograms, cervical cancer screenings, diabetes screening, depression screening, and more.
The catch is that these services have to be billed as preventive, and that doesn’t always happen automatically. Before your next appointment, call your insurance company and ask specifically what preventive services are covered at no cost on your plan. Then let your doctor know you want your visit coded as preventive. It’s a simple conversation that can save you hundreds of dollars.
2. Check Whether You’ve Met Your Deductible Yet
If you’ve had any medical care since January, it’s worth logging into your insurance portal or calling member services to find out how much of your deductible you’ve already met. Your deductible is the amount you pay out of pocket before your insurance starts sharing costs, and once you hit it, your out-of-pocket costs drop significantly.
If you’re close to meeting it, spring is a great time to schedule any care you’ve been putting off. That specialist appointment, that imaging you need, that follow-up you’ve been delaying. Getting those done before the end of the year means your insurance is actually working for you.
If you’re nowhere near your deductible and you’re generally healthy, it might also be a signal to revisit whether your current plan is still the right fit when open enrollment comes around.
3. Look Into an HSA or FSA If You Don’t Already Have One
A Health Savings Account (HSA) and a Flexible Spending Account (FSA) are both ways to set aside pre-tax dollars for medical expenses, which means you pay less in taxes overall. The money can be used for doctor visits, prescriptions, dental care, vision care, menstrual products, and a long list of other qualifying expenses.
An HSA is available if you have a high-deductible health plan, and the money rolls over year after year. An FSA is offered through many employers regardless of your plan type, though most FSA funds need to be used within the plan year.
If either of these is available to you and you’re not using them, you’re leaving money on the table. Even contributing a small amount each month can add up to meaningful savings by the time you need it.
4. Audit Your Prescriptions
If you take any regular medications, it’s worth spending a few minutes this spring making sure you’re paying the lowest possible price for them.
Start by asking your doctor or pharmacist whether a generic version of your medication is available. Generic drugs contain the same active ingredients as brand-name versions and are typically a fraction of the cost. Then check whether programs like GoodRx, Mark Cuban’s Cost Plus Drugs, or your state’s pharmaceutical assistance program could bring the price down even further, sometimes lower than what you’d pay with insurance.
If you have a medication that requires prior authorization and you’ve been denied or delayed, know that you have the right to appeal. Your doctor can submit supporting documentation, and many denials are overturned on appeal. It takes time, but it’s worth it.
5. Know Your Right to Appeal a Denied Claim
Speaking of appeals, this one deserves its own spotlight. Insurance companies deny claims every day, and many of those denials are wrong, outdated, or based on criteria that have nothing to do with your actual medical need. What most people don’t know is that you have a legal right to appeal every single denial.
The appeals process works like this: your insurance company denies a claim, you request an internal appeal, and if that’s denied, you can request an external review by an independent organization. That external reviewer’s decision is binding, meaning the insurance company has to follow it.
The American Medical Association reports that the vast majority of prior authorization requests that go through appeals are ultimately approved. The system counts on people not fighting back. Fighting back is free, and it works more often than you might think.
If you’re not sure where to start, your state’s insurance commissioner office can walk you through the process. Many states also have patient advocates who can help at no cost.
One More Thing
We know the healthcare system is complicated by design. Navigating it takes energy that many of us frankly don’t have after working, caregiving, and just living. But small moves made now can mean real savings and better access to care throughout the year.
At BWHI, we believe that health equity and financial equity are deeply connected. A system that is unaffordable is a system that is inaccessible, and inaccessible care is not truly care at all. That’s why we fight for policy changes that make these moves less necessary, including capped premiums, lower deductibles, and an end to prior authorization as we know it.
In the meantime, spring is a good time to start. You’ve got this.
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