LIke you, we couldn't even afford a small payment.....so many of the hospital bills & MD bills just went to collection. House was upside down in value & we were both on disability so there was nothing they could come after.

Last hospital stay was after I went through a trauma & I was in no condition to deal with the hospital & I hadn't had anything to do with our finances for a long time & had no idea where the information was that the hospital wanted.....I told my H to take care of it & they told him that he couldn't....they didn't bother to tell him that I could have signed a waiver to allow him to deal with it or maybe they told him & he didn't bother to understand what they said.....but he DID NOTHING like normal.....so NOTHING was done....& at that point....I really didn't care.

Since left him after 33 years of grief & now I have total knowledge & control of everything financial in my life. I fractured my back a few years ago & everything with that got paid off at $5/month.....had to laugh, one place that medicare wouldn't cover was taking my $5 payment then sent it to collection....I got all over their case for doing it.....I never got another bill from them. Had another MD that I had an issue with a charge about & I refused to pay it.....it went to collection, the MD left their practice & the bills stopped coming.....you never know what might happen but mostly, I make sure that I pay everything now even though it has to be at a very low monthly rate. I had another issue with one MD.....& refused to pay any more on the bill then they got at the time I went in.....they weren't able to treat me anyway, so they couldn't withhold treatment until I paid....keep getting a bill for that but they have never sent it to collection....that's been 1 1/2 years ago.

When I first got sick with the depression, the medical insurance I had wouldn't pay for the local hospital near my home (their psych ward), they always forced me to ride in an ambulance to the hospital that they approved which was about 100 miles away.....talk about a rip off with the ambulance company....I fought it, but they refused to approve my local hospital.....I refused to pay for the ambulance charges because it was forced....let those go to collection & ended up dropped over the years

I understand the frustration but I got to the point where I felt I didn't have the money & they couldn't get blood out of a turnip....& I was definitely a turnip by that point....their problem..with cell phones, there is caller ID & blocking of phone numbers.....so that's how one can deal with collection agencies now.