How to organize/file Health/medical paperwork

[niccig]

So, during the paperwork challenge, I have sorted a box of health/medical information for the 3 of us going back 8 years - statements from insurance company/bills paid etc. I have no idea what to do with all of this.

I also need a system to deal with current medical - eg. I get the statment and then months later I can get a bill.

Any advice is greatly appreciated.

[citymama]

OK, this is one thing I've gotten started on. I have an accordion folder for each year of medical expenses. Within those folders, I have a EOB (Explanation of Benefits) manila file folder, Bills Paid, Bills to be Paid folder and Dental folder. I'm not sure if it makes sense to spend too much time on statements etc that are over a year old unless you have outstanding bills, tax related reasons or reimbursements due. This isn't a perfect system by any means, but it helps me stay on top of things.

[niccig]

OK, this is one thing I've gotten started on. I have an accordion folder for each year of medical expenses. Within those folders, I have a EOB (Explanation of Benefits) manila file folder, Bills Paid, Bills to be Paid folder and Dental folder. I'm not sure if it makes sense to spend too much time on statements etc that are over a year old unless you have outstanding bills, tax related reasons or reimbursements due. This isn't a perfect system by any means, but it helps me stay on top of things.

Thanks. I'll give this a try.
I have an accordion file that I keep for the bills, so this will work for me. I have an empty accordion file, so I can do this tonight. I need to match my EOB to the bill - at the moment, I'm not checking with the EOB says and what the bill says, and I know there's often mistakes in billing.

I don't know about getting rid of things after a year - I had surgery and kept getting things for quite some time. I keep my bill file as there's tax things in there, I can always put the year's health stuff into the yearly bill file, and then put it all away in the storage box. If I find I don't need to retrieve the information, I'll get rid of it earlier.

[citymama]

No, no, I didn't mean you should get rid of things older than a year, but you may not need to go thru and sort really old statements and bills. I think it's important to have a good system for current year and past yr but if you have heaps of old unsorted statements, personally, I'd just put them in a shoebox marked "old health bills - paid" or something like that. But maybe that's just me.

[niccig]

No, no, I didn't mean you should get rid of things older than a year, but you may not need to go thru and sort really old statements and bills. I think it's important to have a good system for current year and past yr but if you have heaps of old unsorted statements, personally, I'd just put them in a shoebox marked "old health bills - paid" or something like that. But maybe that's just me.


Ahh..I get it and yes you're right. I can do 2009 and 2010 and then the rest I can just put in a box together. Good idea. It'll take me much less time to go through them.

I was going to put each years in a with the yearly bills files and in 7 years, when I shred for tax purposes, those can go too. Would that work?

I also need to keep the Health FSA paperwork, so that can be a section in the accordion file.

I think I need to keep a history of medical details, so when I need to remember what age DS was for something, I can look back through it.

Ok...I need to get started.

[citymama]

Oh, good idea about a separate file for FSA paperwork. This is always a stumbling block for us - forgetting to get reimbursed for out of pocket expenses.

[Momof3Labs]

I rely heavily on our insurance's online EOB system, which reduces paperwork.

For FSA stuff, I have a folder for stuff to be filed with insurance/FSA and a folder for stuff pending response (filed but haven't heard back - I keep copies of all pages filed).

[citymama]

I rely heavily on our insurance's online EOB system, which reduces paperwork.

I've found it really helpful to hang on to the print copies for the calendar year because our online system only has summary info not the whole EOB statement. In case of a claim which is denied or some other issue needing follow up, I find it helpful to have the EOB on hand when I call or sometimes am asked to fax it over. This must vary between insurance cos.

[niccig]

I rely heavily on our insurance's online EOB system, which reduces paperwork.

For FSA stuff, I have a folder for stuff to be filed with insurance/FSA and a folder for stuff pending response (filed but haven't heard back - I keep copies of all pages filed).

This is a good idea to have a folder for FSA to be filed, then another with Filed waiting response - and then I can write Approved on it when it's get approved.

Great ideas

[bubbaray]

Not sure if this will help, but for our extended health insurance, we are usually issued 2 receipts, one to send to the plan and a tear off for our records. I keep the tear off and then staple it to the applicable statement once it comes back as paid from the ins. co. I file them in reverse chronological order, so that the receipts I am waiting to have paid are always sitting on top of the stack of "paid + stapled" ones already in the folder. It means they can all be in 1 folder, but its easy to spot at a glance if something is outstanding.

HTH

[egoldber]

Not that this helps you much, but our FSA is all on-line. I can see submitted claims, pending claims and paid claims. So I only need to hold onto FSA receipts that I have not yet filed.

I can also see full EOBs on-line.

[Momof3Labs]

I've found it really helpful to hang on to the print copies for the calendar year because our online system only has summary info not the whole EOB statement. In case of a claim which is denied or some other issue needing follow up, I find it helpful to have the EOB on hand when I call or sometimes am asked to fax it over. This must vary between insurance cos.

I can see full EOBs online for both of our plans. Though when I dropped my insurance 1/1/10, I lost access to all of my 2009 EOBs (even though I can still get on the site)! We were all caught up, so it wasn't a big issue, just a surprise.

[niccig]

Thanks everyone.

I sat in front of the TV last night and I made up sections in an accordion file for all the medical bills/FSA. I put 2010 in there, and the earlier years I'm going to put with the tax paperwork that I keep for 7 years. I also had room for a section for each of us to keep medical records that we need to have eg. vaccination certificates, information on surgeries etc - we don't have much to put in here, and if it gets too be too much, I'll have to make a separate fodler,

I would like to make up a log of medical history - just a simple list of any medical details, so I don't have to search my memory for the date of DS's surgery etc. Once I get that done..the medical files are done!!

Thanks for the help.