Some Interesting Hospital Bill Tips from a Reader

A reader sent me an email about some of the things that he has learned when dealing with hospitals and billings. Since it’s good info, I really wanted to pass it on. He was very kind and gave me permission to share with all of you.

“The hospital is required to take any form of payment you can offer. If your bill is $1,000 and all you can afford is $100 a month then they have to accept it. The key is as long as you are trying to work with them on a payment plan they have to work with you. Sometimes the hospital will offer a “discount” if you pay it all at once. (They may not want to deal with the paperwork of the monthly payment or they want as much money as they can get now.) So they would say if you pay it all now it’ll be $700. So try the payment option first and see if they will counter with the “discount” offer.

Sidenote: A coworker told this incredible story. He had a high hospital bill, too high for a single, broke guy in his 20s. So he said he could pay $50 bucks a month. So for the next few years he paid his $50 a month religiously. Never missed the payment and had documentation for it all. Around the second year the hospital told him to forget about it. They just told him he didn’t need to worry about the payments anymore. Talk about crazy!!

Ask if they have any sort of assistance plan. If you qualify they have money that is set aside to help out people who can’t pay the bills. We had to go through quite a process and a lot of paper work but it helped us out. We had to fax in copies of all of our monthly bills and pay stubs to show that our end monthly balance was no where near the amount their bill was. In the end our bill went from a couple of thousand dollars to under a grand.

So don’t be afraid to ask questions and see if their are any other ways to help.“

Posted by Tricia on March 29, 2007 at 8:14 AM in Saving Money |
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  1. Amber responded:
    Posted: March 29th, 2007 at 10:36 am

    Although I can’t really speak to how my brother went about it, I know he attempted to arrange payments for his hospital bills and even was sending them what he could, which was $25/month. After a couple of months they informed him that he was behind in payments and after he showed them the cancelled checks they told him that the only way they accept payments is if you pay the bill in quarters so those payments he’d been making only were applying to the first month. Anyway, lots of craziness and it went to collection. He finally got it paid off but it really was a pain. Now, this was at a teaching hospital so I don’t know if they work things differently. And this was about 10 years ago so it might have changed by now.

  2. Jen responded:
    Posted: March 29th, 2007 at 11:32 am

    Hmm… The bill paying confusion could have changed since then due to more computers being involved, and organizational changes in health care. For instance, when I first moved to Boston the billing with my doctor and the med labs would get all screwy becuase I’d get a bill and pay it, and then the insurance would pay their share, and then I’d get a credit. But, one time I had to go back and get tests, so there was overlap in me paying and the insurance paying, and then me owing more money… It got all confused and I had to call someone, who ended up being very good at straightening it out.

    Now, however, it seems that the doctors and labs have consolidted everything under one organization, or maybe the hospital was bought by a larger company? Either way, the billing process seems to be more efficent - streamlined and computerized. But smaller hospitals in less urban areas may still have inefficient billing systems if there aren’t any companies around to outsource the billing to.

    I hope that all made sense… Not much sleep last night.

  3. Jason responded:
    Posted: March 29th, 2007 at 12:43 pm

    Good advice about paying it all as soon as you receive a bill. My wife spent some time in the ER recently which ended up being an overnight stay. Total bill was ~ $11k however our responsibility was only ~ $450. We called the day we received the bill and the hospital agreed to take 15% off if we paid then. Thanks to Dave Ramsey and my $1,000 emergency fund, I was able to pay then and save myself almost $68.

  4. Sara responded:
    Posted: March 29th, 2007 at 4:52 pm

    I have HORRID insurance and planned for a homebirth and ended up with an emergency C-section. My hospital bills are VERY high. My son is 2 and we are STILL paying them.

    We had multiple bills (the peditrician, the OB, the hospital, etc etc) and the final company to send us a bill really got the short end of the stick, as we were just tapped out. We began paying $20 a month (on a $2000 bill) and have $750 left (we’re now paying $50/mo) which should be payed off in about 2 months.

    I hear a lot of people say that hospitals won’t work with them. Although the biller wasn’t happy about $25 a month (they kept saying, “The least we can ACCEPT is $50/mo” and oour reply was that they would get $25/mo or NOTHING) but they did accept it.

    IMO, you should definitely try for a cash discount if you can pay the bill right then. If you can’t, pay as much as you can and get them out of your life. But if you end up like us, simply make PAYMENTS faithfully and pay your debts, even if you end up paying $25/mo for three years!

  5. Marie Gerules responded:
    Posted: March 30th, 2007 at 12:35 pm

    If someone told me to forget about a bill, I’d be checking what they can do to me if I suddenly stopped paying. I had a co-worker who got slapped with a garnishment from a hospital because his ex stopped paying.

  6. Edward R. Waxman responded:
    Posted: April 4th, 2007 at 12:18 pm

    Contrary to the reader’s first statement, the hospital is not required to take any form of payment you can offer. If you do not pay your bill in full within 30 to 60 days, the hospital has the right to turn your account over to a collection agency. That is not to say that the hospital WILL turn your account over to a collection agency, but it CAN.

    Simply sending the hospital a check for $25 or $50 or $100 or any other amount every month is not sufficient. If you cannot pay your bill in full and you want to make sure that the hospital doesn’t turn your account over to a collection agency, you must call the hospital’s billing department and set up an installment payment plan.

    If you can pay your bill in full, it is always worth calling the hospital’s billing department and asking whether the hospital will accept as payment in full your check covering 70% of the total amount. Say that you will put the check in the mail that very day. The hospital may not accept 70%, but it may be willing to accept 75% or 80% or something less than 100%. If the hospital refuses to offer you a discount, say that you will have to pay in installments if you have to pay the entire amount. The hospital may prefer to offer you a discount after all.

    It can cost a hospital more than the amount of the payment to process a $25 or even a $50 payment. That is why hospitals are so reluctant to accept very small payments. If you can demonstrate conclusively that you can’t afford to pay more than $25 or $50 each month, the hospital may very well write off your account as uncollectible. But don’t count on that happening, because it may not be as easy as you think to demonstrate conclusively that you can’t afford a larger monthly payment.

    If your hospital bill is $10,000 or more, you should have it audited. Virtually all bills of $10,000 or more contain overcharges that a competent hospital bill auditing company can get the hospital to remove from the bill. The reduction can amount to anywhere from 10% to 30% or even more in some cases. No large bill should be paid without first being audited. After the bill has been reduced by auditing, if you can pay the reduced amount in full, a competent hospital bill auditing company will ask the hospital to discount the reduced amount in return for a lump sum payment.

  7. ruth responded:
    Posted: March 6th, 2008 at 6:36 pm

    in 2003 i had 2 liver transplants. Thank goodness that I have a great insurance company and my husband has a great employer (walmart). They paid 100% of the cost for 1 year. However, after one year my ordeal was not over. It is now 5 years later and I still have alot of complications and that keeps my hospital bills going up. I just had a appointment and was told that my bill now was 17,000 I almost fell over, but they will take payment. To top it all off, I take anti-rejection medications and they too are very expensive. The bill for the pharmacy is almost as much as the hospital .

  8. Ready to jump off a cliff responded:
    Posted: May 2nd, 2008 at 10:49 pm

    I am sadly uninsured. Last July I had an emergency appendectomy in Los Angeles. The hospital bill was $64,000. That is not a misprint.

    I spent 7 months trying to get Medi-Cal to cover it under a retroactive emergency clause; they finally closed the claim, the private “advocacy” firm ( whom I never heard form till the very end of this ordeal) withdrew their representation from me, and now the hospital has submitted a new bill for me to pay… it’s $120,000. Not a misprint.

    I am told the $64,000 was what I owed in anticipation of Medi-Cal ( even though it exactly matches the itemized bill total) and since it was refused, I actually owe $120,000.

    They offered no interest payments. I said “like what, $1000 a month for 10 years ?”.

    I need to find an outside company to audit this bill ( suggestions ? ) and I need to weigh straight bankruptcy ( they’d get ZERO based on my net worth).

    I also wonder if they would take a reduced amount, like $10,000, in lump… or if they’d take maybe $20,000 over 4 years ( like a car payment… manageable)…

    Anyway, I’d like to jump off a cliff but obviously could not afford the following medical care ;)

  9. Edward Waxman responded:
    Posted: June 17th, 2008 at 6:29 pm

    Ready to jump off a cliff: If you haven’t jumped yet and are still looking for a hospital bill auditing company, go to http://www.hospitalbillauditing.com/Information_Form.html and submit your information. We will then get in touch with you. Our only fee is one-third of the amount that we save you.

  10. Jeff responded:
    Posted: July 12th, 2008 at 4:41 pm

    Ready to jump off a cliff : Your being
    way overcharged unless your burst and you
    ended up in the ICU. Also if the hospital
    that treated you is non-profit they are supposed
    to help low income people(if you are in that category). Contact the hospital and if
    they don’t want to help go to local media
    outlets or a state representative.
    Make sure you get some type of
    insurance even if it is a high deductible plan
    .If you are healthy you are looking at a $100-200
    a month premium payment.I was fortunate going
    without health insurance for a long time
    and nothing happening to me.One accident can
    leave you screwed for life.
    I was reading about a guy who ended up just
    like you after a year the hospital finally agreed
    to write it off although his credit is dinged
    up he didn’t have to file bankruptcy.Still
    the guy decided not to get health insurance even
    though at his age it wouldn’t cost much.

  11. Brett responded:
    Posted: October 14th, 2008 at 3:32 pm

    What should one do if a hospital bill has gone to collections in a total of 11,000 and they want you to make payments of $400/month when you barely make 500-600/month and your rent is 400/month. All in all, what does a person do when they can only afford $25/month to 2 different collection agencies and $25/month forever will never pay off the debt. Is there any other options to get rid of a bill in collections that will never be paid off?

    Please e-mail me back and let me know.

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