I am 53 and not working. I was denied ss. Anyway, I applied for medical insurance through my state back in September or October and they were supposed to approve or deny me within 6 weeks. For months, they kept asking for financial information without approving or denying me and I was getting angry with them. I told them that if I don't get approved for medical that I would be making a trip to the emergency room soon. That was exactly what I did in early January. Now, I have finally been approved for medical care but my coverage did not start until Feb 1 and they are denying me coverage for my ER visit. I am sure that I pissed them off at that office as I didn't get approved until I wrote a complaint letter to the governors office about them. Immediately after I received my bill from the hospital for around $1,000, someone from the hospital started calling me and wanting payment. They couldn't even wait 30 days to see if I was going to pay it or not. I told them to submit the bill to my insurance company but of course they are denying me coverage for it. Today I received 3 phone calls from the hospital collection office but I didn't answer the phone. I don't know what to do or how to handle them because I cannot pay this bill. I need expert advise. As far as my credit report, at this point in time I couldn't care less. Thanks in advance.
Try one of your state reps, your state senators or your governor again. Talk to the hospital and advise them that you fulfilled all the requirements for coverage well prior to your visit and that the insurance company failed to timely act on your application despite your repeated requests and your cooperation in what they asked. Advise them of your limited financial means and suggest to them that you would assign your claim against the insurance carrier to them so that they could pursue the bad faith angle. It may be that you'll need to get an attorney and pursue the bad faith angle yourself.
And if flacorps' suggestion doesn't get you anywhere try negotiating with the hospital directly. Two months ago I received a medical bill which I could not pay all at once. The hospital "suggested" a payment plan which I turned down. They actually asked me what kind of payment I could afford. I told them. They agreed to that.
When negotiating with the hospital, ask about the "insurance" price. Hospitals have a variety of rates for any given service and like to charge the "rack rate" to those without insurance. Insurance companies never pay that amount and have a scale that decides the "usual and customary" rate for any thing (a rate which is ALWAYS lower than what you see on your bill. While you may have agreed to financial responsibility, you certainly did not agree to price gouging or making decisions under duress (e.g. as a patient in the E.R.). Your agreement to financial responsibility is not the same as handing the hospital a blank check (even though they like to think that it is). Don't let them bully you. There are also services and programs for people who cannot pay due to no job, no money or whatever. You might qualify for one of those. I don't know all the details but these are a couple of angles you might look into further.
Thank you all. Negotiating any price at all right now will not put money in their pockets as I am barely getting by. The advice is all good and will first pursue flacorps idea before anything else. I feel that the hospital wants to pressure me into some kind of an agreement and that is what all the phone calls are for even tho the bill is only 1 month old. Too bad there are no standard canned letters for people like that! When I filled out the application for health care for the state, they wanted all kinds of private information and said it was required for anyone applying for general assistance. I kept saying that I was only applying for health care. Why they use the same app for all of their programs I don't know but I refused to sign a statement saying that I was not an illegal alien or was running from the law kind of thing...even tho I am neither of those things. It was not required info for the program that I was applying for and it pissed them off that I wouldn't sign it. It was just the principle of the thing with me. Three months they led me on before finally letting me have the insurance. I am not a pushy person but need to fight this somehow without making a verbal agreement with the hospital on a payment plan. You know what they say about blood and turnips.
