[GNC] Handling medical bills

[Ed Greenberg]

I'm drowning in my aged parents medical bills. Their bills get sent to
Medicare for payment, then to a third party insurance company, then to me
for a co-payment.

Mostly I'm trying to make sure that I don't pay anything that isn't
represented by a finalized explanation of benefits (EOB), and that I don't
pay anything twice.

Here's what I'm doing, and I wonder if anyone is doing similar and can
weigh in with a better process.

Once a month, Medicare produces an EOB, and on some irregular schedule, the
third party insurance produces an EOB.

Sometimes the provider bills me before the EOBs show up and sometimes
after.  The only way to know what is a duplicate is by the provider name
coupled with the date of service.

When by process EOBs, I create incoming accounts payable records. This
gives me an easy record of what has come in before. When I receive bills
from providers I try to match them up with what exists in gnucash. If I
can't, and I can't find an EOB on the various websites, I create an
incoming accounts payable record.

If I have all the ducks in a row as indicated by the accounts payable
record, the "bill," then I can pay the bill.

This is a pretty new process for me, and if anybody has any suggestions on
how to enhance it, I would be interested in hearing of it.

Ed Greenberg