How Long to Keep Health Insurance and Hospital Bills

Part 2, Chapter 5: Traditional Individual and Group Plans, Hospital Bills Page 10

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As it turned out, the bill was covered by the individual's insurance policy. The claim denial was based only on the insurer's requirements for additional documentation from the hospital. The hospital insisted that they had sent copies of the records to the insurer. However, the insurer claimed that they had received some of the records, but that they needed additional documentation.

Fortunately, the reader had kept copies of all of the records related to the hospital stay. Those records made it possible for a hospital billing department supervisor to locate the official records quickly, and to ensure that the appropriate documentation was forwarded to the insurer.

The question of how long you need to maintain copies of records related to services hospital stay is a difficult one to answer. I have worked with readers of my newspaper column in situations in which insurers rescinded payment for hospital ices four or five years after the hospitalization had originally occurred. Certainly, given those experiences, it may be a good idea to keep such records for at least five years.

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