Hold Onto the Cash

In cases of hospital confinements, that is.

And provided that we're not talking disastrous, super unwanted emergencies here.

Say, we're talking of some routine surgery, like a tonsillectomy. Or confinement to deliver a baby. Hold onto your cash, especially if you're not yet sure how much the bill will be and if you intend to pay part of your bill using a credit card.

Why?

Because doctors expect their professional fees to be paid in cash. Some would allow that their PFs be paid with the hospital bill at the cashier but most doctors would rather you pay them directly. Something to do with the PFs getting delayed.

Learn from our mistake. We paid the deposit in cash and come discharge time, we had to scramble to come up with more for the PFs. We should have just charged the deposit to our credit card. Blasted ATMs had withdrawal limits and charges for inter-bank withdrawals. And although we had planned to let the credit card cover most of the cost anyway, it was still very troublesome to have to come up with such a huge amount of cash when you're already ripping to be discharged. We had to dip into our savings to pay off the cash loan immediately, instead of just paying off the lot as credit card loan on a staggered basis.