How Do Divorce & Custody Affect Medical Expenses
Divorce and custody agreements are very complex, and oftentimes they’re also very ugly. This ugliness creates long-term tension. If those two people are also parents, they’ll have to devise a long-term plan for how to handle the child in a way that will benefit the child without adding stress. And this is hard. Especially so if you introduce any unexpected medical expenses later on.
When an emergency room visit needs to be paid, or long-term care and other health-related costs, the first question that often comes up is: “Who will pay?”.
Later on, it comes to an even bigger question: “How does a separated family share responsibility fairly without getting into a conflict situation?”
The Overlooked Cost of Care
Most divorce agreements take care of expenses that are visible and familiar to each family (e.g., school fees, additional classes, overall living costs, etc.).
What they (unfortunately) don’t anticipate in most cases are major health incidents.
In a scenario where a child needs unexpected surgery, families are instantly placed under tremendous emotional stress and financial strain. When families are unprepared, disputes about who should pay and how much can become a conflict that engages everybody, especially the children.
Why Health-Related Bills Are Different
Medical costs don’t ‘behave’ like other regular bills.
Instead, they’re:
- Unpredictable – Nobody knows when an accident or chronic illness will surface
- Uneven in scale – A checkup cost might be insignificant, but a visit to the hospital (or surgery/treatment) could cost thousands of dollars (or more).
- Ongoing – Chronic disease means spending over and over with no finish line in sight.
- Emotionally charged – Illness creates anxiety and stress, which can fuel disagreements over money.
Because of all of these factors, it is important that divorced or co-parenting families approach healthcare expenses as a category in itself.
In other words, they should be separated from typical support expenses.
Four Ways of Handling Shared Medical Expenses
In order to reduce conflict and promote fairness, families can take proactive steps:
Include Health Clauses in Agreements
When drafting or redrafting custody or divorce papers, be sure to state how medical bills are going to be split explicitly. Will they be 50/50? Or according to the percentage of income?
Use Expense-Tracking Tools
Programs such as SupportPay allow parents to upload receipt pictures and document payments, which helps provide transparency and helps eliminate all the “he said, she said” disputes most frequently raised when one parent accuses another of paying more (and vice-versa).
Set Up Emergency Funds
Even a modest, shared savings plan for surprise medical expenses can ease anxiety when emergencies arise.
Make a Decision Process Agreement
Medical procedures occasionally have choices like basic vs. premium care. Talk in advance about how decisions are made to prevent disagreements when there is no time to fight.
When Neglect Becomes a Legal Issue
Most families can pay for sudden medical expenses, but data show that at the same time, they’ll struggle to do so.
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37% of U.S. adults struggle to cover unexpected $400+ (USD) expenses. – Federal Reserve |
But while the ‘sudden’ medical expenses are usually dealt with, albeit with difficulty, it is also apparent that many families are powerless in stopping what has caused those sudden expenses in the first place – poor care or neglect.
Take, for example, imagine your child is in a hospital after a car crash and the child suffered a severe spinal injury. Or the child suffers from a neuromuscular disorder, is in a pediatric intensive care unit stay, or has suffered post-surgical complications.
The point is – the child is tied to a bed with moth parents not having much information about how long the treatment might take, feeling stressed. The bills keep coming, and it’s difficult to deal with, yet the parents push through it no matter how difficult it might be.
Now imagine the staff members being extremely neglectful or mistreating your child; so much, in fact, that your child develops bedsores. And so soon after that, the condition worsens, endangering the child’s life!
The family has already been through enough, and neglect is no reason to cause even more distress. In that case, the facility should definitely be held accountable, which is why both parents, knowing what’s best for their child, would seek stage 4 pressure ulcer legal representation to recover damages and force facilities to ‘wake up’.
This isn’t only about justice; it’s about helping families not to be left financially devastated by abuse.
How To Prep for the Future
Medical expenses are by no means cheap. But if you’re prepared for them (e.g., having an extra ‘just-in-case’ budget), they’re so much easier to deal with. And by having a way of dealing with them, so many disputes can be prevented.
By integrating medical provisions into custody arrangements and by using an open system, children can be better protected from unwelcome tension, which can have long-term harmful consequences.
Medical costs are usually never cheap, but if families are prepared for them, they can avoid the most painful disputes. Through the integration of medical provisions into custody arrangements, the use of open systems, and making plans for decision-making, parents can protect their children, and themselves after all, from unwelcome tension.
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There are many more studies and analyses that show the same (or similar) result, both new studies and old.
That’s why the key takeaway from this is that if a marriage IS to end up in separation, it’s the children we must protect by not introducing conflict into their lives. No matter how difficult this may be, if we want our children to thrive, then we must be better.
Conclusion
No parent wants to think (or deal) with medical emergencies and/or healthcare issues.
Not if a family member is involved. And it doesn’t have to do only with finances, but the stress of a family member in need.
In a divorce agreement, having a future plan for emergencies will help avoid conflicts later. Transparent agreements and shared responsibility when it comes to medical costs allow us to focus on what matters the most – children – instead of fighting over bills.
