If you haven’t dealt with large medical bills for yourself or your children, you are very fortunate. I have personally dealt with some big ones and in the past struggled to pay these medical bills.
When my oldest daughter was almost five years old, my next-door neighbor’s dog bit her hand through the backyard fence. While my daughter shouldn’t have stuck her hand through the fence, the dog did bite her finger and drew blood. I went to the neighbor’s house to discuss the issue and learned that the dog was not up to date on her rabies vaccinations because my neighbor had been very sick. This was a huge concern for me because I didn’t know what the dog had been exposed to. After some quick research, I decided it was best for my daughter to get the rabies prophylaxis until we knew for sure that the dog did not have rabies. I called around to see if we could get this done in a doctor’s office or urgent care facility, but that was not an option. We ended up taking my daughter to the emergency room.
Hospital Visits and Associated Costs
In my experience, emergency room visits have the potential to be expensive. One simple ER visit can cost thousands of dollars out of pocket. And if there is an ambulance ride to take you there, that’s a huge cost too. If your emergency room visit turns into a hospital admission, you will likely be looking at thousands of dollars per day for medical care. Even if you do have insurance, it’s unlikely that all of this is going to be covered. To further complicate things, when the medical bills start to roll in, you are going to be dealing with bills from your ER doctor, the hospital, and the ambulance company if you required transport.
Although hospitals are often the first place we run to when we need help for an emergency medical condition, to give birth, or to have an operation, they are also businesses. As a business, they require money to operate and will collect on accounts as most businesses do. And even though some hospitals are required to provide medical care to everyone that needs it, even those without insurance or some other ability to pay, at some point you are going to be asked to pay the bill. Receiving a hospital bill from the hospital billing department is pretty standard, but if you don’t pay it they will eventually send it to their collections department to handle. And once it hits collections, it can turn into a civil lawsuit against you. In short, things can get ugly and complicated fast if you don’t pay your hospital bill.
Medical Expenses and Hospital Bills
I have made efforts to be responsible with medical expenses. Everyone in my household is covered by health insurance. It may not be the greatest insurance, but it is what we can afford. We do our best to use medical providers that are in our network so that we can minimize our expenses and not have to pay more than we should. Despite our best efforts though, sometimes expenses aren’t going to be fully covered. There are insurance deductibles and copays and other medical expenses that our insurance didn’t cover.
After stressing over not being able to the hospital bill and dealing with their collections department, I found out that hospitals typically have a financial aid person. If you call the hospital and speak to their financial aid person, they will be able to give you financial aid and sometimes wipe out that medical bill entirely. Most hospitals have a financial services department. You should be able to find a website link somewhere on their website, but if you cannot then just call the main number and ask for Financial Services. Once you know how to access the hospital’s financial services department, you may be directed to a number to call, an application to fill out, or documentation to submit.
Solution
With my personal situation, I paid on the large hospital bill for a couple of years until I just couldn’t afford to pay it anymore. Not being able to pay on the bill got me into trouble with the hospital collections department and they were threatening me with a lawsuit. Once I felt I had no other options and was feeling desperate, I decided to reach out to the financial assistance person at the hospital who sent me an application. I then completed the financial service application, and the bill was wiped away. It felt amazing to not have that bill to deal with anymore and especially to not have the collections department hanging over my head!
Neighbor and Dog Issue
If you’re curious about how the dog bit issue worked out, my daughter was upset but fine. We took her to the emergency room and she had the one rabies prophylaxis shot to be on the safe side. My neighbor was not okay, however. She refused to accept responsibility for the occurrence and was even confrontational and mean about it.
In our city, if a dog bites a person, then that dog must be quarantined for observation. If the dog is up to date on their rabies vaccination, then they can be quarantined at home. However, if they are not up to date on their rabies vaccination then they must be quarantined under the care of Animal Control. This costs a great deal of money. My neighbor’s dog was taken by animal control for observation, which ended up costing her hundreds of dollars more than a simple rabies vaccination would have.
We still don’t get along with the neighbor to this day and she has made it well known that she doesn’t like me. I continue to not care about this.
Summary
If you have medical bills that you can’t handle, I strongly recommend that you address the problem head on. Do some quick research to see if your hospital has a financial services department or a financial aid person. Once you learn how to contact them, then get started in getting them to adjust your medical bill for you. See what you qualify for. You may have your bill adjusted based on their sliding scale according to your income. They may even write you entire bill off. Good luck with getting help with your medical bill!
Recap
If you have a medical bill you cannot pay:
- Find out if your hospital has a financial services department or financial aid person.
- Call financial services or the financial aid person and ask how they can help with your bill.
- Complete the financial services application.
- Submit any requested documentations to support your application.
- Follow up as needed.
- Wait for bill to be reduced or wiped away entirely.
- Breathe more easily!!!
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