How to Pay Those Impossible Medical
Bills
FMOnline vol. 8, no. 2
More than nine years ago, I was drowning in medical bills. Bills for
the X-rays, the doctor who read the X-rays, the people who do the blood
work, use of the ER, charges for oxygen, even once a bill for $364 for
three injections of Novocain! (That doctor billed very creatively. He
called three injections of Novocain “Minor Surgery!”)
And no
matter how hard I tried to pay, inevitably my tight budget would not
permit me to pay them all. I tried paying them by date of service, but
then the guys at the end of the line would send me to collection.
Creditors would call and insist I would have to pay before such and
such date, or they would take me to court. Other doctors’ personnel
would call insistently and whine, “Just pay $5 a month.” I finally just
threw my hands up and said “Forget it! I still need food! And car
payments, and rent, and car insurance, and gee, once in a while, a new
blouse or some jeans or underwear.”
For several more months,
the bills kept raining. Blizzards of bills. They had already destroyed
the credit I had so carefully rebuilt over a period of 10 years, since
I had first become ill. The phones, the nasty creditors, the threats
never stopped. I could not rest, or read a book, or watch a TV show
without these vultures constantly screaming at me. I decided to Take
Steps.
I went to the local hospital, and asked to see the
hospital administrator. I sat down with him, introduced myself, and
said that I had a plan to not only pay the bills, but to save them tons
of paperwork.
I said, “I have carefully worked out my budget.
I can afford to pay $40 a month. I will, this very day, start an
automatic payment to this hospital, to be paid every single month
without a fuss. In return, the hospital will pay the other bills. After
all, I had no choice as to who would read my X-rays, run my blood and
urine tests, or even which ambulance showed up.
“You will pay these bills, in order of service, by date. You, in
essence, hired these other doctors. I had no choice in that matter. You
have to know how to deal with Medicare/Medicaid and everybody’s private
insurance. Your staff already knows all the ins and outs of dealing
with Medicare/Medicaid.
“You have already wrecked my credit.
You cannot garnish the checks of people living on Social Security. You
can get a judgment, but what good will it do? It will only cost you the
fees charged by the lawyers, and you can sit here,
spinning your
wheels, and not get paid, period! Now, I can call my bank, right this
minute, you can speak with the banker, because she is already expecting
your call. I have already authorized this payment; all you have to do
is speak to her, and the first of next month, you will get $40. Apply
that to my bills, and put my bills in order by the date of service.”
To
say that he was both angry and nonplussed was an understatement. But he
did make the call to my banker, and was assured that the billing was
already set up.
We tried the experiment. It worked. Four
years later, when I left that small town, all my bills were paid, my
credit was slowly being restored, and my hospital and doctor bills were
paid in full! And the hospital was then looking to see if they could do
the same thing with other patients.
The primary hospital can be
the county hospital. In big cities, it can be the first hospital in
which a patient is treated. From then on, all bills are paid to that
hospital, without regard to which hospital sees the patient
subsequently. Or the patient and his or her family chooses the hospital
to whom they want to direct that automatic payment, every month.
Sure,
seniors on a tight budget might only be able to afford $5 a month. This
sounds like chump change to most hospitals, and their hospital
administrators. But magnify that senior by thousands of other
seniors,
each paying what they are sure they can afford, and suddenly, the
hospitals and doctors are receiving a stream of money—money that can be
relied on. And the hospitals themselves begin to realize savings in
their billing costs! No more millions of dollars of wasted time sending
otherwise honest citizens bills and envelopes and postage. It gets paid
every month.
I know this sounds radical as hell. Hospitals, and their
administrators, and probably even the billing departments, would scream
and shout, “It can’t be done that way!”
Don’t try to tell me that—I already made it work.
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This article was originally published in the FMOnline newsletter. This free online newsletter is only available to registered members. Click here to register!
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