What happens if you can't pay a hospital bill?

I just got the bill for my hospitalization after my suicide attempt last Spring. My insurance has covered some, but the amount that's left still is about ten times what I make in a month. I have no idea what to do.

Call the hospital and see if they can work with you....some will reduce the bill, offer a repayment plan or for some they will even waive the fee if you qualify for special programs. Start there.

Has it gone to collections yet? Or still just being billed by the hosptial?...if still being billed by the hospital than like the other poster suggested you may be able to work with them, so maybe call and see if they have any programs to help people pay or if they can reduce it or set up a reasonable payment plan.

Otherwise if you can't pay it, it goes to collections and then they try to collect it...though you can send them a letter telling them not to contact you, however if they choose to pursue legal action than I imagine you have to go to court or whatever. I have unpaid hospital/ambulance bills not as much as yours probably but still money I don't have to pay so I'm really just hoping the collections agencies don't take legal action, even if they do that will not put me in a position where I could pay it really.

I agree that you should try calling the hospital to work out a payment plan. Also consider calling SSDI if you are on disability to see if they have assistance. Also call 211 to see if they have assistance or recommendations. You may or may not want to consider taking out a bank loan or credit card to pay for it and then pay off the loan later.

The complicated scenario is if you just didn't pay. I would recommend asking this question ("What happens if you just don't pay?") to a financial forum full of lawyers to get information about that. Remember to include your state in the OP. Depending on your state, there might be different rules for medical debt than for most other debt, and different rules regarding a "time barred debt" which can no longer impact your credit, and different rules regarding collection practices. Some excellent financial forums are:

Bogleheads ? Index page

and

FatWallet Forums - Finance

Good luck!

i found working out a payment plan is best. i take a page out of dave ramsey and i flat out tell them what i can pay based on my budget. they'll hem and haw, but they have to pay money to collection agencies. they're more likely to accept you paying regularly.

i told them (back when i had a lot) that 'i can pay you $50/month' and she'd say 'well that's not enough' and i'd say 'that's all i have. i can't pay you what i don't have.' and then they'd accept it grudgingly. it took me a long time, but i paid it off.

I have hospital bill in collections....I just send then $5-$10 each month and they cant do anything about it cause I am paying..

I should have suggested calling your insurance company to confirm that you really do owe that amount. Insurance policies almost always limit the amount that a hospital (or doctor) can charge for certain services. It's pretty common for a hospital to accidentally bill people the uninsured rate which tends to be much higher. Your insurance company can tell you what they think you owe and why.

I owe several thousand dollars and I am unemployed on SSDI so I made a payment arrangement and the hospital charges $25 dollars each month to my credit card. Don't charge the entire amount to your credit card though; my uncle did that when he had surgery and now he is going to have to pay a lot in credit fees. If you set up a payment arrangement for even a small amount most hospitals will work with you. Many hospitals offer charity care so ask if you qualify for that to reduce how much you owe.

Some hospitals suck though, I still have an unpaid bill from having to be taken in ambulance(due to policy probably was not really nessisary) and also being in the ER of that hosptial before being transported somewhere else. I tried to call that hospital to make some kind of arrangement and explain I had no real income...but they said there was nothing they could do if I couldn't pay so it went to collections.

Though at the place I ended up they had a chairity thing that covered my whole hospital bill which was nice since I was in that psych ward for over a week at least so could have been quite costly and put me in even more debt I can't pay back.

I didn't qualify for charity. And even with insurance I still owe money for some hospitilazation I had when I had insurance. ( before Medicaid). I owe thousands...like $6,000

Is it all owed to the same hospital or collections agency or from various hospitalizations so to different collections agencies? If its different ones so that amount is split up its possible if they are contacting you you can send a letter telling them to stop and then all they can do is pursue legal action, however that costs them money so it may not be worth it to them.

You might want to look up laws and information in your specific state about it though since it might vary. I just cannot see myself affording to send them any money, so even though maybe a little more risky than just sending them a little money each month, I'll just deal with it if they try and pursue legal action, either way that will not cause me to be able to afford to pay it off. Or maybe I'll find out if I can send them a 5$ cash payment every month because i am not giving them my debit card information or sending them a check since it has those random numbers that I am sure provide some information about my checking account.

I've been in this situation. Basically, there is not a whole lot the hospital can do. They really don't do much different from what any creditor would do. One major difference, though, is that they often have programs for people with low incomes. In some cases they just forgive the debt. For that to happen, though, you have to disclose your financial situation . . . income, assets, etc. Like others above, I would definitely look into that first.

One of the main reasons people file bankruptcy is to unload medical debt. Medical debt is no more protected than consumer debt. It's not like student loan debt that you can't ever get rid of.

Ask yourself what you have to gain by trying to pay it off. Do you have a good credit score that you'ld like to keep. Do you have assets that you would be afraid to lose.

If you are in a low income bracket and don't have a reasonable expectation of that changing in the future, then you don't have all that much to lose by not paying off the debt. They will telephone you for awhile. Then they'll turn the debt over to a collection agency, who will also call you for awhile. My experience is that, eventually, they just give up. It really is that simple.

Oh they call me and send me letters ALL the time.

^ they did that to me for a few months, but haven't gotten any calls or letters for a while now.

You set up a payment plan with the hospital ... Even if it's only for $5.00 a month ... And stick to it NO MATTER WHAT - NOT MISSING ONE PAYMENT! ... As long as you are making an earnest effort to pay the bill, they won't harass you.



ps. Many hospitals have forms you can fill out and submit for review, and if that proves a certain level of indigency, they'll completely waive the balance due, so it might benefit you to check into that as well.

Call to work something out, most will arrange a payment plan, and I never heard of any with interest. Sometimes if your lucky it'll be over looked for awhile and eventually written off. But thay could be taking a chance. Usually if a bill is acouple years old I just take out the balance. So best shot is asking to reduce the bill/payment plan. Given the situation that placed you there they maybe even willing to help you out more. Take care and best of luck with all you may cross!!!!

I asked for a payment plan, and I'm still worried about how I'm going to make my payment every month. The lowest they could go was still over fifty dollars a month, which considering my income, still seems like a lot. But it's better than having to come up with more than a thousand dollars right now.

If $50 a month is too much, then it might as well be a thousand dollars. If you can pay it, good. If you can't, then you are back to the original dilemma. What happens if you just cannot pay. Well . . . they can sue you. (Usually, they just threaten to sue . . . because they know that no judge can make you fork over what you don't have.) A judge can order garnishment of your income, or seizing of your assets. A judge can order that your bank give to the hospital part, or all, of what you have on deposit. But, if there is nothing there, then there is not a lot that can be done to you.

There are a few things that we all should bear in mind when dealing with people we owe money to that we don't have the means to pay. There is no law that says you have to talk on the phone to anyone. When creditors call asking the same questions over and over, you have a perfect right to say, "I've already responded to those questions, and I really have nothing new to add at this point in time. If that changes, I will contact you. For now, I'll have to say goodbye." If you stick to that, you can get those phone calls to slow down quite a bit."

If they can't get at you on the phone, then their next move is to threaten to sue you. You may even get a summons delivered to your door stating that they've filed with the local court to do that. (I got a couple of those.) Despite doing that, they are not likely to actually pay a lawyer to pursue this, if they believe that you don't have anything for them to take from. Not all resources can be taken. For instance, a judge will not allow a person's income from Social Security to be tapped by creditors. (It can be tapped by the IRS, if you owe taxes.)

If what you have is barely enough to survive on, regardless of where it comes from, a judge can protect it on the basis of you being in a hardship situation. But you have to ask the judge to do that.

The main thing I've learned from having debt I couldn't pay is that I might as well just RELAX about it. Being poor is hard enough, without worrying about the things you can't really do anything about.