Hospital Bill

[Anonymous]

I am not sure if this is the right spot for this....

My son was recently in the ER for some stomach issues.  We did not have insurance.  I just got a bill for the visit, which ended up over $6000.  I called to make payment arrangements, and they informed me that all they could set up was a payment plan for 12 months of $500 a month.  Informed her that this just wasn't doable.  I asked if I had other options and apparently there are none.  I am in the process of cleaning up my credit and am very frustrated at the fact that I am trying to work with these people and they are making it impossible.  Any suggestions on what I should do in this situation?  Any and all help is appreciated.

Thanks

[DaveInAZ]

Well, first of all don't count on the hospsital to give you reliable info. Check on the laws in your state. I had a similar situation, ER visit back in 2006, no insurance, medical bills in the thousands. I did a lot of asking around and internet searches and found that my state, AZ, has a state law that for medical bills the provider is required to accept monthly payments with a minimum of $25/mo., and they can't make any collections attempts as long as you keep up with the monthly payments. So I started mailed them a check for $25 each month. After a year and a half or so they sent me a letter stating they had written off the balance and no fruther payment was required.

Hopefully your state has a similar law. If not your other option is to negotiate on the amount they billed you. With no insurance you get billed the full "retail" amount of charges, while for patients with insurance or Medicaid/Medicare they use rates often less than half of what they billed the uninsured. The problem is if they do agree to accept a lower amount as payment in full you need to pay them in full in a short period of time. Maybe you could get a personal loan from a local credit union or Prosper/Lending Club for the negotiated settlement, and repaying the personal loan would fit into your budget. And, get insurance! I'm in my 2nd year of health insurance coverage through Healthcare.gov for less than $100/mo., and a very good policy, covers 80% of medical expenses. 

Good luck.

[Anonymous]

Most hospitals have something called charity care. Depending on your income and family size, the amount of the bill can be reduces significantly.

[Anonymous]

my mother went to the er and it ended up being in the thousands as well. she went and asked for charity and it was all paid by the catholic charity service. (something like that).

only thing they didnt cover was the ambulance.

[vanillabean]

Charity care of course isn't philanthropy making up the difference in medical bills patients can’t afford. The rest of us pay higher taxes and more for health care because of it.

That’s not to say we shouldn’t. There are some situations in which it’s unjust not to help people, no matter how they landed in the situation. Still, there has got to be a better way!

[Kirmie2010]

You may want to check with the hospital if they have a donation system.

I went in for the flu, 1.5 hours later I had a 4000 aspirin bill.

When they told me the total, I was shocked, asked if insurance covered anything?  She said it covered some.  If I was having trouble coming up with the money for my bill, they had a system in place where donations were used towards peoples unpaid hospital bills.  I could try to sign up for it through the hospital or I could ignore my bill and hope that it was one of the ones that got chosen for a donation payoff.

I was pretty mad I owed 4000 for 1 tylenol so I said to myself, screw it.  No way to fix this oh well, 7 years from now I will be ok.

2 years later I got my credit reports and started working on my credit, turns out my account did get a donation, I owe about 600 dollars total on 2 bills left from the original 4000.

I dont know what its called, it may have been specific hospital that did it via their churchy stuff (it was catholic, you dont have to be religous to go there, it was just a religous hospital)

You may want to ask your hospital if they have any kind of assitance or donations that help with unpaid bills.

A lawyer firm I retained did similar to me as the hospital is doing to you, I thought it was illegal but couldnt find anything stating it was.  (Case was over, I owed 3600, they wanted it up front or in 5 easy payments of wholly crap thats too much every 2 weeks or it was going to collections, they wouldnt do any other kind of payment at all)

*edit*
Once again I left window up too long  Sorry what I said's already been said!