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I am not a lawyer or financial advisor. But I’ve heard that you can’t be sent to collections if you make a good faith attempt to pay your (medical) bill. Which

I am not a lawyer or financial advisor. But I’ve heard that you can’t be sent to collections if you make a good faith attempt to pay your (medical) bill. Which in practice might mean you just pay $5 while you wait for the itemization

mehrdadn 7y ago
That would "acknowledge the debt" or something like that from what I understand?
- opportune 7y ago
  From what I understand it, it doesn’t mean you acknowledge that the entire bill is for the correct amount. Also if you know you’re going to have to pay at least $5 out of pocket anyway you’re not really losing money. But again IANAL I’m just parroting advice I read on Reddit one time
djsumdog 7y ago
Insurance companies negotiate a lot of this stuff away. The poster needs to call them first, see if they can arrange a $5 payment without addition interest while the itemized bill comes in (honestly, there is legal ground here for not even being willing to honor any of the bill with itemization). Get on the phone, try to keep cool, but realize you're probably going to yell at some poor customer service rep at some point. Apologize, keep going and get the full bill before you agree to pay anything. Then you gotta do the same thing with the full bill on ever bullshit charge, over and over again. Honestly, how the fuck can they admit you and treat you and then bill you without telling you what the prices are up front? That's fucking madness right there. Imagine having to agree to having car or bicycle service without an estimate? Imagine the total cost being $2000 over the estimate? Would people pay? Of course not; it's worth it at that point to call a lawyer.
- journalctl 7y ago
  The trouble is that in an emergency or urgent situation, you can’t really shop around for service. “I’m having a heart attack, but can we try the hospital in the next town over? Their cardiologist is cheaper.” Bike service is a leisurely afternoon; emergency medical care is not. It shouldn’t cost that much in the first place. You shouldn’t need to shop around for health care, and you shouldn’t be bankrupted by an emergency. Why people aren’t marching through the streets right now is beyond me.
  - 0x8BADF00D 7y ago
    > Why people aren’t marching through the streets right now is beyond me. You answered your own question. They’re too fat, lazy, and sick to get up and walk 5 feet, let alone march in the street.
chooseaname 7y ago
At least one hospital was pretty aggressive: https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/uva-has-ruined-us-health-system-sues-thousands-of-patients-seizing-paychecks-and-putting-liens-on-homes/2019/09/09/5eb23306-c807-11e9-be05-f76ac4ec618c_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/uva-has-ruined-us-heal...
alexanderdmitri 7y ago
Our first born came with a $42k bill. Hospital and doctor said we were covered by our insurance pre-auth, but come bill time apparently pre-auth was null and void b/c it was requisite on a negotiation that fell through. Each side had a different story and their representatives acted absolutely helpless. We were broke at the time we found out about the pregnancy and memories of the first two years of my boy's life are largely dominated by this kafka-esque nightmare that took time and security away from our family life. I refused to pay a cent until what we were told was honored, my thinking being any sort of payment may legitimize it. Eventually I didn't hear back from the hospital about our latest contestation for two months after confirming their receipt of the documentation (about a four hour process each submission, always new fax numbers, life-wasting hold times to confirm receipt of said documentation, transfers to other agents and departments, then a promise of giving a decision in a few weeks, often just reprinting the last non-descript document they used in the previous round without any real detail). Decided to just do nothing and ignore it as long as I didn't get contacted again and got everything ready to go to court if someone ever decided to pursue it against us again. The documentation I've been holding from the ordeal is 60 pounds of paper. I still have no idea what the true status is, but it hasn't shown up on credit checks and our boy is now 5 years old. I could not find anyone in various governmental institutions to even look into the matter and the lawyers I talked to said the outlook of winning was grim and would have cost a lot of money on top of that to even pursue it. Our insurance company [Anthem] posted a $17 billion profit that year. The hospital had the highest gross profit of any hospital in our city and the surrounding area at $80.4 million declared. Both entities make so much money they give away individual debts amounting in the tens of thousands of dollars for pennies (maybe ours included?). It's an absolutely depraved system and my point is maybe be careful showing good faith to an entity trying to screw you lest it be taken as consent.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- zaroth 7y ago
  You absolutely did the right thing in not paying a cent. There is virtually zero chance you will ever hear another word about it. The $42k is a fantasy figure which they collect approximately 0% of the time. It's the easiest $42k you ever saved.

mehrdadn 7y ago

That would "acknowledge the debt" or something like that from what I understand?

opportune 7y ago
From what I understand it, it doesn’t mean you acknowledge that the entire bill is for the correct amount. Also if you know you’re going to have to pay at least $5 out of pocket anyway you’re not really losing money. But again IANAL I’m just parroting advice I read on Reddit one time

djsumdog 7y ago

Insurance companies negotiate a lot of this stuff away. The poster needs to call them first, see if they can arrange a $5 payment without addition interest while the itemized bill comes in (honestly, there is legal ground here for not even being willing to honor any of the bill with itemization). Get on the phone, try to keep cool, but realize you're probably going to yell at some poor customer service rep at some point. Apologize, keep going and get the full bill before you agree to pay anything. Then you gotta do the same thing with the full bill on ever bullshit charge, over and over again. Honestly, how the fuck can they admit you and treat you and then bill you without telling you what the prices are up front? That's fucking madness right there. Imagine having to agree to having car or bicycle service without an estimate? Imagine the total cost being $2000 over the estimate? Would people pay? Of course not; it's worth it at that point to call a lawyer.

journalctl 7y ago
The trouble is that in an emergency or urgent situation, you can’t really shop around for service. “I’m having a heart attack, but can we try the hospital in the next town over? Their cardiologist is cheaper.” Bike service is a leisurely afternoon; emergency medical care is not. It shouldn’t cost that much in the first place. You shouldn’t need to shop around for health care, and you shouldn’t be bankrupted by an emergency. Why people aren’t marching through the streets right now is beyond me.
- 0x8BADF00D 7y ago
  > Why people aren’t marching through the streets right now is beyond me. You answered your own question. They’re too fat, lazy, and sick to get up and walk 5 feet, let alone march in the street.

chooseaname 7y ago

At least one hospital was pretty aggressive: https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/uva-has-ruined-us-health-system-sues-thousands-of-patients-seizing-paychecks-and-putting-liens-on-homes/2019/09/09/5eb23306-c807-11e9-be05-f76ac4ec618c_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/uva-has-ruined-us-heal...

alexanderdmitri 7y ago

Our first born came with a $42k bill. Hospital and doctor said we were covered by our insurance pre-auth, but come bill time apparently pre-auth was null and void b/c it was requisite on a negotiation that fell through. Each side had a different story and their representatives acted absolutely helpless. We were broke at the time we found out about the pregnancy and memories of the first two years of my boy's life are largely dominated by this kafka-esque nightmare that took time and security away from our family life. I refused to pay a cent until what we were told was honored, my thinking being any sort of payment may legitimize it. Eventually I didn't hear back from the hospital about our latest contestation for two months after confirming their receipt of the documentation (about a four hour process each submission, always new fax numbers, life-wasting hold times to confirm receipt of said documentation, transfers to other agents and departments, then a promise of giving a decision in a few weeks, often just reprinting the last non-descript document they used in the previous round without any real detail). Decided to just do nothing and ignore it as long as I didn't get contacted again and got everything ready to go to court if someone ever decided to pursue it against us again. The documentation I've been holding from the ordeal is 60 pounds of paper. I still have no idea what the true status is, but it hasn't shown up on credit checks and our boy is now 5 years old. I could not find anyone in various governmental institutions to even look into the matter and the lawyers I talked to said the outlook of winning was grim and would have cost a lot of money on top of that to even pursue it. Our insurance company [Anthem] posted a $17 billion profit that year. The hospital had the highest gross profit of any hospital in our city and the surrounding area at $80.4 million declared. Both entities make so much money they give away individual debts amounting in the tens of thousands of dollars for pennies (maybe ours included?). It's an absolutely depraved system and my point is maybe be careful showing good faith to an entity trying to screw you lest it be taken as consent.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
zaroth 7y ago
You absolutely did the right thing in not paying a cent. There is virtually zero chance you will ever hear another word about it. The $42k is a fantasy figure which they collect approximately 0% of the time. It's the easiest $42k you ever saved.