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Several years ago, I received a bad medical bill: $150 for an in-network doctors appointment that my health insurance was supposed to cover with a $30 co-pay. After multiple long and frustrating phone calls over several weeksduring which time nothing was resolvedI gave up and wrote a check for $150. That experience convinced me that medical billing is confusing and error-ridden on purpose. Recent research backs this up. A staggering 80% of medical bills contain errors, most of which are easily preventable. Under our current medical billing system, patients face a horrible catch-22: They can spend money on error-ridden bills or they can spend time getting them corrected. (If they have neither money nor time, then their bills may go to collections.) Covering medical costs under an intentionally confusing system will always be an uphill battle. But until we change how we pay for healthcare as a society, heres what you can do to make medical bills fit better into your personal budget. Take your time paying medical bills Some healthcare providers may send a bill to you before your insurance company has had time to process your claim. If thats what has happened, your balance owed will look much higher than you expect. In that case, the bill may have a blank spot in the section labeled insurance payment or plan payment. Waiting to pay that bill until the insurance has come through will ensure you only pay what you owe. But this isnt the only reason you may want to wait before paying a medical bill. If you expect to receive multiple bills because of a lengthy stay in a hospital or repeated specialist visits because of a particular health issue, it can also be a good idea to hold off on paying until you have received all of the related medical bills. This will allow you to double check that you have not been double-billed for any procedures or services before you start making payments. You dont need to worry that waiting to pay will affect your credit. The time period before unpaid medical debt is reported to the three major credit bureaus was increased from six months to 1 year as of 2022. And as of 2023, medical debt under $500 is no longer reported to the credit bureaus. Request an itemized bill If you had multiple services, your bill may not list them all. Instead, patients often receive a summary bill that lumps all of the charges for services together. But its impossible to tell if there are any errors in a summary bill, which is why you should request an itemized bill if you dont receive one. While hospitals generally will not send one without being asked, receiving an itemized bill upon request is one of your rights as a patient. The hospital is legally required to send it within 30 days of your request. Also known as a superbill, the itemized bill lists each medical billing procedure code, the amount paid by insurance, and the amount you owe. Check for mistakes With the itemized list in front of you, check for mistakes. Some of the common errors you might find include: Services or procedures erroneously listed multiple times Procedures listed that you didnt receive Charges listed that have already been paid Amounts charged that are above legal limits Charges for more expensive procedures than what you received You may need to look up medical billing codes to make sense of the itemized bill. These codes can generally be found online by typing in the code with the term medical billing code. You can compare the description of the procedure you find online with your bill to see if the codes match the healthcare you received. Dont forget basic fact-checking Unfortunately, some of the most frustrating medical billing problems may stem from getting a basic fact wrong. An incorrect birthdate, patients with similar names, or someone accidentally transposing two numbers in a patients street address could be enough to trigger an insurance claim denial. While you are checking medical bills for mistakes, make sure youre also looking at your personal information, including your birthday, billing address, date of healthcare service, medications, and other details. Ask your medical provider for a price break Just because the final charge you receive looks more like a phone number than a bill doesnt mean you have to pay that amount all at once. Many doctors accept payment over time with a payment plan and provide a no-fee method of making monthly payments. Providers may alternatively forgive a portion of your bill if you can make an immediate, smaller payment. Its important to remember that doctors are not well served by the medical billing system, either. Doctors often sell medical debt to a collections agency after 90 days of delinquencybut for a fraction of whats owed. Which means medical providers would rather work with a patient to avoid losing money by sending the debt to collections. Partner with a patient advocate Having to navigate all of this while simultaneously recovering from injury or illness seems like the kind of dystopian nightmare that Suzanne Collins would consider a bit over-the-top. Thankfully, help is available via patient advocacy, and theres no fight-to-the-death requirement to access it. Patient advocates work to help patients navigate the healthcare system so they can get the best care for their needs. This includes helping patients to understand and manage their medical bills. To find a patient advocate, start by calling your hospital. Many hospitals have advocates on staff who can help you with the process of understanding your bills, correcting medical billing errors, and applying for financial assistance. Alternatively, you can search for a patient advocate or representative online. Check for advocacy groups that help with medical bills in your state or for patients with a secific condition or disease that you have. If you have a chronic or life-threatening illness, the Patient Advocate Foundation is a nonprofit organization that can help you get and pay for care. Navigating the broken system Medical billing is not set up for clarity, low cost, or ease of use. When a patient gives up and pays more than they owe, the system is (most likely) working as intended. And until collectively we decide to change it, we are stuck with a system that requires an investment of time to avoid overpayment. Until that happens, knowing your rights as a patient can help keep you from making costly mistakes with your medical bills. That includes the right to take up to a year to repay your medical bills before they are reported to the credit bureaus and the right to request itemized charges. In addition, keeping an eye out for mistakes, which are incredibly common, can help you avoid overcharges. Finally, ask your medical provider for any discounts or payment plans they offer, and partner with a patient advocate so the burden isnt entirely on your shoulders.
Category:
E-Commerce
In Ralph Lauren’s latest campaign, Black men, women, and children wear the brand’s traditionally preppy clothes against idyllic coastal backdrops. The collection isn’t just some sort of woke fantasy of a post-racial America. It’s grounded in a very specific history that many Americans aren’t familiar with. The setting of this campaign is Oak Bluffs, a section of Martha’s Vineyard that has been home to Black communities for more than a hundred years. Oak Bluffs was a haven for educated, middle-class Black families looking for respite in a racist, segregated country. And in this place of relative peace and safety, Black people were able to nurture excellence. Key figures of the Harlem Renaissance and Civil Rights Movement, from Langston Hughes to Martin Luther King Jr., spent time there. President Barack Obama vacationed there with his family and now owns a house in a neighboring town. Ralph Lauren delves into this history in a gorgeous short film full of archival footage created in partnership with Morehouse and Spelman colleges. Directed by Cole Brown, A Portrait of the American Dream is a radical statement in our current cultural climate, when the notions of diversity, equity, and inclusion are under attack. Here is an American brand that understands how to meet the needs of Black consumers, who are expected to spend as much as $70 billion on fashion by 2030, according to McKinsey. Many pieces in this collection are already sold out. Rather than making a superficial effort to get these consumers to spend money, Ralph Lauren is doing the work. The company began partnering with the historically Black Morehouse and Spelman colleges in 2022, working closely with Black academics and cultural critics to understand how students there helped influence preppy fashion as we know it. The Oak Bluff collection goes deeper, reflecting how members of the Black middle class enjoyed their leisure time. [Photo: Nadine Ijewere/courtesy Ralph Lauren] A tale of two fashion ads Ralph Lauren’s new collection offers a contrast to American Eagle, which has been mired in controversy because of its recent campaign featuring Sydney Sweeney. As my colleague Jeff Beer explains, American Eagle’s campaign hinged on the double entendre that Sweeney has great jeans and great genes. In a video, the actress provides a scientific explanation of genetics, describing how genes pass physical traits from parents to offspring. Given that Sweeney is a blond-haired, blue-eyed woman, many people thought this ad reeked of eugenics, the idea that some people have better genes than others and that society should prevent the reproduction of those considered unfit. The outcry about the American Eagle campaign featuring Sweeney has everything to do with the political and cultural climate we’re living in. The extreme rightwhich includes white supremacists and neo-Nazisis on the rise, while the Trump administration attacks organizations that invest in DEI programs. In this context, it’s no surprise that a campaign about how a white woman has good genes evokes the most horrific aspects of racist history. The fact that American Eagle could not foresee how this campaign could go wrong suggests that it did not receive enough feedback from diverse people as it created its ad. Either the company did not have people in the room willing to point out how troubling it was, or the company didnt listen to those who did speak up. [Photo: Nadine Ijewere/courtesy Ralph Lauren] Ralph Lauren has taken a very different approach with its design process and marketing in recent years. It doesn’t just create clothes that celebrate the diverse strains of American history; it works closely with diverse designers, creatives, and thought leaders. To create the Oak Bluff collection, in addition to historians and cultural experts at the two HBCUs, it partnered closely with the Marthas Vineyard African American Heritage Trail, the Marthas Vineyard Museum, and the Smithsonians National Museum of African American History and Culture. [Photo: Nadine Ijewere/courtesy Ralph Lauren] It also tapped Black creatives to produce the campaign. In addition to film director Brown, who spent summers on Marthas Vineyard for decades, the campaign features photography by Nadine Ijewere and video footage by Azariah Bjrvig. Consider its 2023 collection, which celebrated Native American style. Ralph Lauren brought in Naiomi Glasses, a seventh-generation Navajo textile artist and designer, to create garments inspired by her culture, and also empowered Glasses to select Native Americans as models, photographers, and creative directors. The company now has an ongoing artist-in-residence program where it brings other artisans preserving heritage crafts to collaborate with Ralph Lauren’s creative teams. [Photo: Nadine Ijewere/courtesy Ralph Lauren] Good for business To be clear, Ralph Lauren hasn’t always been this inclusive. For its classic American style, from preppy fashion to Native American iconograpy, in the past the 60-year-old brand appropriated aesthetics from Black and Indigenous communities, rather than collaborating with them. And the company was slow to bring in models of color for its campaigns. The company is now willing to acknowledge its missteps and blind spots, and is trying to do things right. Its designers have learned that the way to be more inclusive is to partner with diverse creatives, listen closely to their points of view, and give them creative freedom. [Photo: Nadine Ijewere/courtesy Ralph Lauren] With all of these collections, Ralph Lauren also gives proceeds back to these communities. This time around, it has partnered with a nonprofit comprised of 100 Black female homeowners on Martha’s Vineyard to support historic building restoration on the island. It has devoted $2 million to support scholarships for students at 10 historically Black colleges and universities. [Photo: Nadine Ijewere/courtesy Ralph Lauren] Many companies, including Target and Amazon, have backed away from their DEI initiatives in response to Trump’s executive orders targeting diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts in both the public and private sectors. So Ralph Lauren deserves credit for having the bravery to continue investing in programs that bring more diversity to its brand. But make no mistake, this isn’t just a moral imperative. It’s good for business. America is becoming increasingly diverse. The U.S. census projects that white people will be a minority by 2045. Black and brown Americans will use their purchasing power to support brands that make an effort to understand them and respond to their needs. And they have long memories. They will hold American Eagles Sweeney campaign as a mark against the brand for years to come. And they’ll remember Ralph Lauren’s Oak Bluff campaign the next time they shop for a sweater or dress.
Category:
E-Commerce
Sometimes, the simplest photo feats are the most satisfying of all. Me? Ive lost count of the number of times Ive needed to remove the background from an image for one reason or another. Maybe its a perfect portrait of my kids or a moderately acceptable photo of my own plus-sized potato headbut then whatevers in the background falls somewhere between messy and just plain meh. Whatever the case may be, removing the background of an image is one of the simplest and most effective ways to edit a photo and take total control of how it looks. But it isnt always easy to figure out how to make that happenquickly, cleanly, and without all sorts of time-wasting hassles. The tool Ive found for you today changes that once and for all. Unearth all sorts of little-known tech treasures with my free Cool Tools newsletter from The Intelligence. A spiffy new discovery in your inbox every Wednesday! Buh-bye, background Ive tried all sorts of image background removers over the years. Some of em are actually quite decent, but almost all of em have some sort of asteriska limit in how often you can use em without paying, a restriction in how large of a file you can download when youre done, or some other sort of constraint that keeps em from being completely ideal. Todays tool is a rare exception. Its a simple stand-alone image background remover thats completely free, entirely web-based, andas far as I can tell as of this moment, at leastwithout any meaningful restrictions around how and how often you use it. The service is a relatively new (and certainly new to me!) element of the online Adobe Express service for image editing. It takes literally 10 seconds to get going and pull off your first image transformation. You just pull up this page in any browser, on any device youre using, and either click or tap the photo uploading box or just drag and drop an image from your device into that area. All it takes is a single clickor a drag and dropto get going with Adobe’s web-based background remover. [Screengrab: Adobe Express] In 10 seconds or less, the site will spit back a perfectly crisp version of your photo with the background completely erasedno rough edges, no awkward remnants, and no effort whatsoever from you to make it happen. A handful of seconds, and bam: Adobe’s web tool has the background stripped out of your image and the file ready to be saved. [Screengrab: Adobe Express] Heres the before and after of my sample image, for a closer comparison. Whats especially impressivethough slightly tough to see at this sizeis that in the original image, the edges of the Android figure were actually slightly blurry. But the tool still got it exactly right, on the first try, and made it look pixel-perfect without the background present. My original image, at left, and the background-free version, at right. [Screengrab: Adobe Express] The only catch Ive found with the tool so far is that after your first time using it, the site will prompt you to sign in for any subsequent requests. Thats because its goal seems to be to get you in the habit of using Adobes broader Adobe Express image editing suitewhich actually is free and can be quite useful in its base form but also includes an optional $10-a-month premium plan that the company ultimately wants you to embrace. But you definitely dont have to do that to keep using the background remover for free as often as you like. Youll just have to sign in onceusing any email address, Google account, or existing Adobe IDand then you can keep on erasing image backgrounds quickly, easily, and effectively whenever the need arises. Keep that link handy, my fellow image-infatuated iguana. If youre anything like me, your future self will thank you. The Adobe image background remover runs entirely on the web. You can opt to download the Adobe Express Android or iOS app to find a similar function, but the real beauty of this tool is its simplicity and the lack of any required installations. The tool is completely free to use. And it follows Adobes standard privacy policy, which doesnt contain anything especially unusual or eyebrow-raising (and doesnt claim any rights to save, share, or do anything shady with your stuff). Keep the discoveries coming with my free Cool Tools newsletter. You’ll get an instant introduction to an incredible audio tool and a new off-the-beaten-path treasure in your inbox every Wednesday!
Category:
E-Commerce
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