Most families don't know this incontrovertible fact about medical bills: they are entirely negotiable. You might be surprised just how accommodating doctors and hospitals can be if you use the right techniques in haggling to cut down your medical bill debt. In fact, it can be as simple as speaking up and asking for help for them to slash your hospitalization costs.

There's an interesting dynamic that goes on in the health industry. Americans are not used to bargaining especially when they think they are beholden to someone. And there's no debt of gratitude bigger than somebody saving your life or your loved one. On the other end of the spectrum, doctors and hospitals have long experienced not being paid in full that they half expect it whenever they provide their service to somebody. This is where the insurance companies thrive, because medical practitioners prefer to deal with them, even on a massive discount, rather than earn nothing at all.

A quick call to your hospital's billing department should tell you if it has a financial assistance program to cover medical bill debt. Most hospitals should have one, in exchange for getting tax incentives from the government. If you pay upfront, you can get as much as 50% discount (some report about getting as much as 80% slash of the total medical bill debt) from your hospitalization costs.

Even before getting the treatment, talk to your doctor beforehand about your budget so he has a parameter to work with. That means prescribing you with generic drugs instead of branded ones, or deferring some procedures and laboratory tests that are really not that important. Also ask if your doctor can reduce his professional fee. It's not as uncommon as you think for doctors to accede to their patients' requests for discounts.

If you can, work within your insurance policy's network of health professionals and list of hospitals to make sure you get the necessary discounts on all procedures and treatment. Again, don't forget to haggle about reducing your medical bill debt. This is not time to be thinking about your pride when a little negotiation would have saved you thousands on your medical expenses.