OK, for starters, there's no way anyone will write off any service provided. If you received services, you can expect to pay for them.
FWIW, providers do indeed write off payment.
When my mom died, stepdad got a couple bills for services in the last month or so. He wrote them quite clearly, listing the symptoms my mom was experiencing and when she told them about the symptoms, and what they did about it (laugh, say it was b/c of the chemo, shrug their shoulders), and what it ended up being. (little note...if you haven't experienced nausea with 3 rounds of chemo, then suddenly have it AFTER chemo is done, if you have a metallic taste in your mouth, and you are needing more blood transfusions....you most likely have a bleeding ulcer, and you NEED the MDs to STOP the blood thinner IMMEDIATELY) Their lack of ability to put symptoms together (as I did in approx 2 seconds after being told of the symptoms, alas this was after she died) caused my mom's death.
Once he sent that letter, they never wrote him again, or charged him. Bills erased.
In a less dramatic story, just a few months ago someone mentioned that they called to find out what they owed for some sort of scan, and the billing person was SO impressed they had called that she just wrote it off! I remember that b/c I was in the process of calling two MRI places to get a bill from them (I got the EOB electronically about 2 days after they submitted it...it took well over a month to get a bill from the places) and no one wrote our bill off!
I don't know why hospitals don't just charge a fair price for insured and self pay alike. Personally, I resent having to stop by the hospital and beg to be charged the same amount everyone else gets to pay just because I'm unable to get insurance. It's demeaning.
In case you really wonder... Insurance is all a game. Practitioners are told the percentage of the amount allowed. So they figure out what they absolutely have to have, and set the total charged so that the percentage of the amount allowed will equal what they need.
For instance, most chiropractors feel that $30 per visit is a good amount. When I was in practice I hated the insurance game. It was just me int he office with no special equipment, and most people had a copay of around that amount, so that's what I charged. That was before 2000...strangely, the reimbursement from insurance companies is STILL the same. Actually less; we have Aetna, and our PPO just reduced it to where our chiro (I am retired, and I never much liked taking care of family anyway, so hubby and son see her and she charges insurance for them) gets $23 based on what they were charging.
So now they have raised their charges, so they can come out at $30 per visit. It's a math thing.
Then we get into laws that say you have to charge everyone the same, though many states do allow you to discount for anyone you want, it just canNOT be based on who is insured or not. So while they CAN discount if they wish to, they can't by law have a list for those who are insured vs those who aren't, because then the insurance companies feel they are being unfairly charged.
And so you have to go in and ask for a discount if you can't pay the full amount, so they can decide if you are the lucky recipient of a discount, which they can't automatically give you just b/c you aren't insured.
Dizneydawn, I agree with a lot of what you said. However, not only did the OP come on here asking for advice, but she also came with an attitude that somehow the hospital "owed" it to her to reduce the fees, cough up the paper work, or even write off the entire bill.
...that got her in this situation, and if there's any chance of resolving the issue and saving her credit, she better do something NOW.
Well see I didn't get that feeling at all. Because of the hope that kept springing eternal in my head when we'd have a long period between letters, I felt that the OP *had thought* that they had written it off. Not that they would when s/he got the service, but that they had already done it.
And coming here to put it out there for us to see and comment on...that IS trying to figure out what they can do.
Taking the OP at face value, if s/he called and got it worked out, then the OP got something from the discussion. Got it worked out.
Even if it's all made up, or if the resolution was made up to get people off his/her back, it's probably let OTHERS know of what to do, and what not to do.
I will say that hopsitals are vastly different from one to the next. The bad one with the bad MDs in it, their awfulness went to their billing department. They were very difficult to work with; they said they wouldn't accept payments, but they did, while we continued with them. While I can't say it was their "fault" that we stopped paying them, they made it VERY unpleasant for us.
But in mid and late '07 when DS had two ER visits to the *other* hospital here in town, we were happy to pay those bills, because THAT hospital was absolutely BEYOND pleasant to work with! Their staff was competent and nice (and I can say that even though I know full well they were scoping us out each time to see if we were abusers...first time was a chest burn from hot water while DS helped make dinner, and second visit was a fall at Target where they had to make sure we weren't letting DS stand in the shopping cart (he wasn't, he was standing on the ground)), and the billing people were outsourced and lovely. We owed something like 3 times more for those bills than we did for the other thing, but it was nearly a joy to pay them. I almost sent them xmas cards! I should, actually, they'd get a kick out of it.
I felt *angry* at the billing people in the first hospital, and when they sent us to collections SO fast, and when the collections people were so nasty...it didn't make me want to pay, even though I knew we needed to. The second place was so pleasant I was wracked with guilt if I called a day late! And then they were so nice and never charged a late fee, and worked with me when I needed to lower payments for a few months, that I enjoyed calling them.
Vastly different.
Anyway, hopefully all this talk will help others, lurkers perhaps.
You are safe.
~ I hope you all have a great time!
Maybe it would be better for everyone to have their own names - it seems like it would save people quite a bit of conflict and confusion!
