8 ms·
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 vo
by 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 agoYou 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.
- ackbar03 7y agoIs there any way to get this sort of advice for ordinary people easily? I remember when I was an exchange student to the US from Hong Kong and I got a flu, I thought I'd get it checked out just in case. I went to a clinic and they told me to get into a medical robe for a checkup and I thought wtf. I also remembered about reading all these horror stories. Of course it might not have been that bad since I didn't go through with the checkup but it's very different from what we have in hk and China where the doctor just takes a look at you, blood test at most, and gives you some pills, usually for no more than 40usd max
- TheSpiceIsLife 7y agoWhy aren’t US citizens queuing up to emigrate? At this stage, it seems like the US is the “land of the free”, whereby “freedom” is defined as the ability to freely exploit everyone.
- D-Coder 7y ago"The conservative echo chamber yelled for 40 years that every mild reform to improve people’s lives is socialism, so socialism has started polling well. Couldn’t have done it without them. … @InternetHippo"
- caconym_ 7y agoSeriously thinking about it. I am also a British citizen, so I'm at least waiting to see how this whole Brexit thing shakes out.
- TheSpiceIsLife 7y agoAustralia has the largest British ex pat population: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_diaspora#Institute_for_Public_Policy_Research_(IPPR)_estimates https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_diaspora#Institute_for...
- Symbiote 7y agoIf you're considering somewhere in the EU other than Britain or Ireland, you should probably aim to be registered as resident before 31 October.
- maximente 7y agomost are still stuck in the loyalty type mentality buffered by things like patriotism and national anthems and flags for any event with >5 people and a TV camera. 50 years ago people had the same loyalty towards their companies, and look where that got US manufacturing workers. nowadays you'd be nuts to expect to stick with a company for 10 years. get yours and get out: others be damned. so it shall be with citizenship. as more and more citizens have more and more power to up and leave, or work outside the confines of the US without too much hassle, questions such as "what on earth are we still doing here?" will be asked, at first in whispers (as they are now), later in louder volumes. where things go from there, anyone knows.
- stjohnswarts 7y agoYou'll probably get a bill in a few years for 10% of the original amount from a bill collector the debt got sold to. Don't pay that either. They should have made sure your insurance covered it, so the onus is on them.