I had a surgery that I had years to prepare. I did much research into costs. There are surgery centers that have transparent pricing all over the US. Surgery ce

I had a surgery that I had years to prepare. I did much research into costs. There are surgery centers that have transparent pricing all over the US. Surgery center of Oklahoma is one. I used them as baseline to consider local costs. I was uninsured and asked the local hospitals and surgeon what the prices were going to be. I did qualify for assistance. I paid my surgeon pronto($2,600) and had to wait for the hospital to approve my assistance application. The anesthesiologist(which I hadn't anticipated, thought that was going to be in the hospital bill) told me to pay $35 dollars to keep my $1,800 bill from going to collections. Once I showed them the approval from the hospital, they would accept that and reduce it to $180. After calling the hospital constantly to get the bill reduced, 6 months later they told me they were waiting to see if I qualified for Medicaid, which I was no where near qualifying for and never requested. I just had their standard financial assistance reduction from about $18,000 to $6,000. In the mean time, my anesthesia bill made it to collections for the full amount. Because. I tried initially to get all my ducks in a row. I tried to pay everyone. Ultimately, I only paid the surgeon the full amount. The medical groups will write off the difference between what they billed and what they sold my debt for. This will reduce their "revenue". I won't ever pay them. Bye bye credit. Cash is King. Edit: I knew going in what the prices were and two of the three parties fumbled the process of payment. Those two didn't get paid because I was frustrated.