About four years ago, our reader who goes by the screename “Stressed” was in a solo car accident. He was taken by ambulance to a nearby emergency room where he says he received “scans and a couple of staples” to one knee. He was only there for a few hours, and had no insurance, so when a relatively small doctor bill for about $500 arrived a few months later, he paid it immediately, thinking he was done with it.
But that was just the beginning. He writes:
“Many months later I received a bill from what seems to be a collections place asking for over $12,000 on behalf of the hospital. They said the original bill was $50,000 and they gave a discount down to $30,000 and now this collection place is asking for over $12,000. I was barely 24 years old and didn’t have that kind of money.”
He asked the hospital for an itemized bill but still didn’t understand it. “They had all sorts of small charges with codes that ranked up thousands of dollars. And because they called in an emergency code when they brought me in, that automatically cost like $10,000?? I don’t get it!”
The bill went unpaid, and he has not heard from anyone about it since then. It’s also not on his credit reports. However, he discovered the hospital website says he owes more than $30,000.
He writes, “I would like to take care of this if there’s a way for them to bring the cost down and for me to make payments but who do I talk to? I tried going to the hospital but they staff there was not able to help me. This has been really stressing me out. I don’t want to ignore it and have it become worse in the future.”
Can You Negotiate a Medical Bill, Even If It’s Overdue?
Welcome to the crazy convoluted world of medical billing. Because our reader was uninsured, he was no doubt charged the “chargemaster” rate for the services he received. As investigative journalist Steven Brill recently wrote in a detailed story about hospital billing, there seems to be “no process, no rationale” behind these charges. And yet they are the reason why a few hours in an ER can result in a bill larger than a patient’s annual salary.
Despite the high sticker price, medical bills can often be negotiated. But in this case, is it too late for that?
“A balance due from a patient can always be negotiated,” insists Britta Erickson, a senior medical billing advocate at CoPatient Inc, a firm that helps consumers find errors and overcharges on medical bills. “If a provider or a collection agency wants money from someone, there is no law that places a deadline on negotiating that dollar amount down. The provider can certainly refuse to negotiate, but it is rarely in their best interests to do so.”