The government is also negotiating service contracts with ExxonMobil, Shell, Total, BP, Chevron and some smaller oil companies.
If your provider doesn't offer such assistance, or if you don't qualify for some reason, there may be a benefit to trying a negotiating service, he said.
The New York Times reported last week that the oil companies were in the latter stages of negotiating service contracts that would return them to Iraq 36 years after they were forced out by Saddam Hussein.
A strike by junior doctors is to go ahead next week after last-ditch talks over the health secretary's plans to impose a new contract on them failed to break the deadlock, the negotiating service Acas has said.
Adam Luehrs, founder of KL Financial Services, an online medical bill negotiating service based in San Diego, said patients can indeed try haggling on their own, but argued that his negotiators are better trained and aren't intimidated about calling doctors and hospitals.
In particular, when negotiating service contracts it is hard for both consumers and providers to define precisely what it means to be compliant with some regulation.
