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Why was only one of the three hospital admittance covered under insurance?
He was covered under my husbands insurance for the first hospital admit-he was dropped because of age and not attending school for the other two. He has insurance now until he is 24. He is looking and has applied for higher paying jobs in fact, applied out of state.
Welcome to America. He had the bad luck to be born in the only developed country in the world where that can happen. His chances of emigrating to another country is near zero, because every country in the world can smell Americans coming with their medical bills.
I don't know your son's situation, but I do know you can work with doctors and hospitals and make interest free payments.
I have several doctor bills and they allow me to make interest free monthly payments. I'm just about to make the final payment to one doctor. The total bill for him was just over $3K. I told them I didn't have the money, so they told me to pay $100 a month. I have been paying them a little over a $100 and now have the bill down to a couple of hundred by making payments every month. They aren't a lon company, so they don't charge interest, they are happy to carry you as long as you make steady payments..!
I had several doctor bills and a couple of hospital bills that I paid of in that manner, never paying a cent of interest.
If you let it go to collection, you are probably going to get charged interest and get harrassed. You should have made arrangments to pay them a little at a time and it wouldn't have cost any interest. If you just ignore the bills, then they get nasty.. Go talk to the people you owe money too, if it isn't too late, and never let getting behind be an excuse for stop paying.
"Getting behind" is not his excuse. He honestly does not have any extra money to pay each month. He told the hospital that, he told the collection agencies that. They tell him his wages will be garnished. He makes just enough to cover rent, elec, propane, phone (yes he has to have one because of his medical condition, and has the plain jane cheap plan), insurance (it's the law, have to have it), gas (walks to work most of the time), groceries and the biggest part is medical. The co-pay for the insulin for his pump is $150/month and the infusion sets are $130 and the resevoirs are $80. This does not include his co-pays for his endocrinologist.
I don't know where he lives, but I learned that hospital "collection agencies" are sometimes just internal in the hospital. Most large hospitals have a scaled billing system for low income or uninsured patients.
He should start by communicating directly with the hospital's billing department and follow the procedure they have.
We are married and live in a town of less than 1000/pop. and more than an hour away from his job in another town. The gas alone would kill him. Dad and I are together lol. My husband even works away from home all week on the other side of the state. Finding a new job isn't easy for my son because of the diabetes. He is a mechanic. He was lucky to get the job he has. Alot of companies (laborer) won't hire diabetics, it's too much of a risk.
My son is a diabetic and in the past three years has had to be admitted to the hospital three times. He was covered under insurance for one admit but not for the other two. He was laid off of two jobs during this time. He is working now but barely makes enough to make rent, utilities and medical supplies. He is being hounded by collection agencies. He became overwhelmed by all of the bills and fell into the "ignore them" rut. He now realizes that he cannot run from these bills. He is confused by the number of the bills, all of the different agencies and the amount. Total is around $20,000. He is scared to death of having wages garnished as he will not be able to pay for his medical supplies (insulin pump) and a place to live. Moving in with Mom and Dad is not an option as we live in different towns. So much time has passed that the collection agencies are not wanting to work with him now and they are demanding full payment or else. Is there a business that he can contact that he can take all of his bills to and they can seperate them out? What original creditor goes with what collection agency? Also, two of the collection agencies actually have different names. They send two letters out each month from each place for the same bill. Taking out a loan is out of the question as 1-he cannot afford any type of extra payment each month and 2-his credit is ruined and would not qualify for a loan. Asking family for money is not an option either as we are still raising two younger children and barely making ourselves. One of his bills is for a volunteer ambulance service for a wreck that he was involved in with three other people. The ambulance was called for the other people but my son was not hurt and signed a AMA form stating he didn't want any treatment. The ambulance sent the charge into collections. Can they do that? Also, each time he was admitted to the hospital, the ER doctors admitted him to Intensive Care even though he and myself requested he not go to intensive care. He has been admitted before for the same medical reason and been admitted under general care. We told them when he was admitted to intensive care that he did not have insurance and did not have any means to pay. The bills kept coming and by the time he called to see if the hospital had any kind of financial services, they told him they couldn't help because the bills had gone to collections so he had to pay it. Any advice would be appreciated.
My advice is more about his medical condition than his financial condition. But I hope you will pass this link along to him and ask him to watch it.
I don't know where he lives, but I learned that hospital "collection agencies" are sometimes just internal in the hospital. Most large hospitals have a scaled billing system for low income or uninsured patients.
He should start by communicating directly with the hospital's billing department and follow the procedure they have.
When he talked to the financial dept. at the hospital, there was a waiting list for people who needed financial assistance. By the time they got to his name, he was in collections and they said there was nothing they could do once his bill went to collections.
I work in a large inner city hospital where the majority of our patients are on medicaid or have no funding whatsoever. The hospital should set up a payment plan and as long as he's making minimum payments there is nothing they can do about it (even if it never gets paid off in his lifetime...) However, not sure if this is the case since it already went to collections. Waiting around and ignoring debt is certainly not the way to handle it. Being proactive, even if he could not pay it off immediately, would have avoided this entire situation.
I feel for you and your son. Hopefully this is a wakeup call that he needs to grow up and tend to his obligations. These hospitals take a huge hit when people don't pay their bills, and it trickles down onto the rest of us.
Very interesting-if my son had the extra $1000 to pay for the food and supplements lol-I do believe that what you put into the body can reverse/slow certain diseases. My son is a firm believer in cinnamon. Uses it on everything and has noticed more stable blood sugars. Thanks for the link.
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