Question

A patient’s bill for minor surgery is $3,858. Her insurance pays 82½%. How much must the patient pay?

Answer 1

$798.35

Explanation:

The easiest way to approach these is to figure out what percentage the patient pays. That's the difference between what the insurance company paid, 82.5%, and 100.

So: 100 - 82.5 = 17.5% is the percentage the patient pays.

Now just apply that percentage to the total bill:

17.5 % of $3,858 means:

0.175 x 3858 = $798.35

The other way to do these, which is usually slower, is to figure out how many dollars insurance paid (0.825 x the bill), and then subtract that from the bill to see how much is left for the patient to pay. Work that out and you'll get the same answer.