Female on a budget

So, it goes without saying that this past year has been a year of crazy medical bills. This pandemic has not been friendly on many people’s wallets. Whether it be a sickness, having a baby, or riding in an ambulance, these are all very common and very hefty bills. Medical bills are one of the worst of all bills and are a lot of the time unavoidable. However, there are tips and tricks on how to deal with these crazy bills. An interesting place to find these tips would be the infamous TikTok. Tori Dunlap, a 26-year-old personal finance expert and the founder of HerFirst100k took to TikTok to explain how to negotiate medical bills. Her video went viral with over 100,000 likes. Tori’s brand HerFirst100k is about trying to educate women on finances, such as medical bills. She started her TikTok video by explaining how one time she was given a bill from her gynecology appointment that she thought was covered by her insurance. This bill was for a couple hundred dollars that she obviously didn’t want to spend. After explaining her situation, her comments quickly flooded with women explaining times where they had to deal with similar situations. Asking about tips and tricks on how to deal with it. Dunlap took to TikTok to help these people and explain what to do. She explained how she always always negotiates everything. “My parents taught me about saving money, the potential dangers of credit cards, and how to invest,” she stated in one of her videos. “I negotiate everything. My dad is the master negotiator. I watched my dad growing up negotiate our cable bill, negotiate our car insurance, and negotiate our phone bill.” Going off of this, she even recorded herself going to the medical office at her gynecologist to negotiate one of her bills. As stated earlier, her method worked and she was able to get a discount. She gets a lot of her advice from her own personal experiences. When Tori first quit her corporate job in order to run her business, her insurance changed along with it, which resulted in a lot of things no longer being covered and her medical bills being even higher. She then learned to ask things such as,”can you provide a one time exception,” and also saying that after calling a lot, they eventually just give in. She has a rough script that she goes off of when it comes to negotiations. She tries to stick to roughly the same thing as she has seen that it has worked nicely in the past. People have replied to her video saying that her tactic has worked for them and they have gotten medical bills significantly reduced because of it. Someone even commented saying that they just asked for a 20% discount if they paid the same day, and they actually granted it for her. Without Dunlap’s video, she wouldn’t have thought to do that and was able to save a good amount of money.