This has to be an OLD bill. They just don't work that fast to take you to court.
They would not verify the overages on the bill there is no way it cost that much in my opinion. But yes I have been told that even if you pay a small amount each month.
Tomorrow.
Get what they've sent you together so you have your account info right there.
Go into or call their Records Department. Find out what you need to do to get your records. See what people saw you, what was done, etc. You will probably need to bring in a signed permission form. Since you don't have a job right now, you could probably just go on into the hospital tomorrow and take some time to do this in person. But you want to get your records.
They do have the right to charge for copying, so if they aren't going to give you *anything* without money, ask that they sit with you and let you review the records. The hospital where this was relevant for me gave a 15 minute appointment for this. But they did just send me records...not the printouts of various machines, but basic records.
Go into or call their Billing Department (if that's on site you might be able to go in). Request an itemized bill of your visits. You want to see what they billed. Did they bill for 3 $15 Tylenols or 11? Did you even have any Tylenol while there? etc etc. Make sure you were there the days they billed, etc.
Once you have both in hand, compare them. Your questions should be answered.
Don't get tweaky about how much they charge. It's WELL known that hospitals charge a TON for simple things, like Tylenol. And you aren't supposed to take your own, because they know that if you take something and something goes wrong with you, you would never EVER say "oh yes I took something". You would blame them, you would sue them. So they control what you are given, even though it's going to cost the earth.
Then you need to see IF they will start working with you. I'm sure it was long ago sent to collections, and in that case you MIGHT be able to get them to pull it back from collections, if you can promise you're going to start working with them. I was able to pull something from collections while I researched things...there was a practicioner name on my paperwork that I didn't understand. Took AGES to figure out that it was a person that worked with the doctor on call. While I researched, they took the debt back.
And then I never followed up, and it was sent back to collections.
Collections people are a PITA (pain in the...). They are mean, rude, and rotten. They will swear that they won't take your partial payment. But you send it and they will cash that check. Don't let them get to you. They are underpaid people in a cubicle miles away from you; don't give them your day.
Once, my sister in law wanted to help me. She wanted to pay (love her for so many reasons!). She's a lawyer. She called and had NO problems. They didn't get twitchy with her as she used her Lawyer Voice. Well it turned out that they were not all that bright (this is Merchants Credit in western WA, for the record), and while they had someone right there ON THE PHONE, willing to pay it all...they didn't give her all the charges.
So a year later suddenly we were being billed by them again.
But after that, I liked to pretend that I was my own lawyer, and I pretended like I was billing a client for this, and they weren't going to ruffle my feathers. When we finally decided to get the monkey off our backs and called to pay, as I was actively paying them, the lady tried to start an argument. NO. I acted like I was my lawyer (I didn't TELL her I was someone else, this was a mind game I played with myself), told myself that this wasn't personal, and I just shut her down.
It's HARD to stay unemotional. But do it anyway. They aren't worth the heartache, especially when you are actually working to pay them what you owe.
And remember that...no matter how bad the care (and I had some awful care), no matter how high the markups, you went there, you got the "care" or care, you do owe them the money.
So get your records, get the itemized bill, and start moving forward. Even though the "care" I got nearly killed me, and scarred my son b/c of their lack of medical knowlege and ability, even though I didn't *want* to go there to begin with, I did go, I owed them. And it felt SO GOOD to make that final payment nearly 5 years later...
Hope this helps,
. We will be paying for a long time but it is workable for us now.
