"The 4 Costliest Mistakes People Make With Medical Expenses"With the April 15th tax deadline fast approaching, I’m writing to suggest a timely story idea for WE magazine for women: The 4 Costliest Mistakes People Make With Medical Expenses.

When you mix the complexities of the healthcare system with the intricacies of the U.S. tax code, you get a perfect storm of confusion and potential for snafus.

In an effort to avoid many of these pitfalls, CEO and co-founder of PicnicHealth [https://picnichealth.com/ ] Noga Leviner identified 4 of the most common mistakes people make when dealing with their medical expenses around tax time:

>> 1. NO PAPER TRAIL
You can deduct medical expenses that exceed 10% of your adjusted gross income, but to do this, you’ll need to have clear records to back up each expense — including easily forgotten things like receipts for transportation to and from medical appointments.

>> 2. FORGETTING DEDUCTIONS
The 10% requirement seems so unattainable that lots of people don’t even try for this deduction, unaware that many common treatments and supplies can often be included — like breast pumps for new mothers, acupuncture, prescription eye glasses, or dependents’ medical expenses.

>> 3. NOT TIMING YOUR SURGERIES
If you or your dependents have multiple big-ticket medical expenses coming up, schedule them in the same calendar year so that you have an easier time meeting your 10% requirement. Scheduling properly can also help you meet your insurance deductible, which resets annually.

>> 4. NOT USING IT — AND LOSING IT
Flexible Spending Accounts allow holders to set aside designated pre-tax dollars for medical expenses.  But this money often does not roll over into the next calendar year, so find FSA-eligible services that you need but have been putting off. For example: stop-smoking classes or a program like PicnicHealth, which organizes and securely distributes your medical records to doctors.

PicnicHealth is a ‘master library of your personal health history’ that for the first time ever collects ALL of your medical records (not just a few scans or charts) and transforms them into a unified visual archive, which is accurate, easy to understand, and rapidly disseminated to every doctor that you use.

For more details on common medical expense mistakes, I’d love to set up an interview with PicnicHealth co-founder and CEO Noga Leviner, who created the revolutionary tool after personally experiencing the records nightmare associated with her Crohn’s disease diagnosis.

Also, if you’re interested in a guest article or blog post from Noga on “How Technology Can Help Solve the Nation’s Medical Care Records Coordination Crisis,” please let me know as well.