The Medical Paperwork Nightmare
Paperwork is the worst! And medical paperwork is the worst of the worst!
I hear this all the time. But if you separate it from all other paper and look at it objectively, IT’S NOT SO BAD.
Get started by pulling out any paperwork dealing with anything medical and separate it for each family member. Separate health insurance information out. Discard anything you no longer need.
What’s left? The bills. This is where you will need to decide if you are going to itemize these on your taxes. If you do, then make up a folder where these will be stored til tax-time. If not, once the bill is paid you no longer need the paperwork.
For current medical bills, that may be going through the payment process, keep an active folder which you need to review often.
A few more things you may want to do to be prepared for the future. Make a list of every doctor that your family works with and keep it somewhere handy. Include name, address, contact information. Make a list of all medications, prescriptions, allergies and surgeries for each family member.
This work is so critical if you or a family member has a chronic and major illness. Getting your families medical paperwork in order will give you peace of mind.
I find insurance paperwork (of any sort) to be a challenge. Every time they send a renewal notice or other update, I stick it in the file, and rarely take a moment to discard the older version. As a result, the file is thick and full of irrelevant documents. It doesn’t help that each mailing is 10-12 pages long either!