Back in December 2021 I had surgery for a hernia. I had a $3500 deductible and I was billed for that amount. Apparently co-pays and out of pocket for prescriptions didn’t count against the deductible.

On the hospital app they let me make monthly payments and it let me track the balance. However, just when I was going to make the payment that would have been about half way through the total amount, the app took away the payment option. I figured I’d just call and ask a human instead of trying to figure the issue with the app.

I talked to the nice fellow who said my balance was zero. I protested a bit telling him it should be more like $1700. He said maybe they was an adjustment but he didn’t see one. Then he said if I owe anything I’ll get a letter or if there was an adjustment I’ll either get a check for my overpayment or I’ll never hear about it again. I called the next two months when the bill would be due again and they had no record of any payment owed. And now, two years after the surgery I’ve never heard about it again.

Seems a bit odd.

quote:

Have you ever had a bill disappear?

Yes. After I paid it off.

yes,

after my father died, 11 yrs ago,
we notified everyone, and the pay slips for his Business Equity loan stopped coming to the house,

so I had to make copies of a previous bill and mail it in with payment,

why?

Wells Fuckme decide to toss it into collection as soon as we told them ( and provided a death cert) he passed,

took me, and a branch manager a month to get it settled,

No, we had just the opposite and I posted about it here a while back.

Daughter fractured her arm and we *thought* we were all settled up with the hospital but nearly 9 months after we were told we were all clear and paid in full, they sent us a bill for something like $3,800

My wife, who can be a real pitbull when it comes to dealing with our children and all these various medical providers fought it for over a year. She’d speak to someone who assured her they’d get right on this and get this fixed then we’d get another bill a few months later then she’d get another person who would do the same, rinse and repeat. Clearly a tactic to get us to give up and pay it.

She kept escalating it up the hospital chain of command and I think they finally got sick of dealing with her because we got a call earlier this year to inform us they made a mistake in billing and would zero it out.

Yes, I questioned a bill. Just wanted to know what I was being charged for. After a while of not getting an answer I gave up and refused to pay. Then I needed to go in for a cold or something and I said hey I'm giving up, y'all never responded I just want to pay the bill. They said there was no outstanding balance. After several calls to various departments I was told the debt was written off. Never hit my credit. All I wanted to know was why I was charged more than usual.

I had a procedure and even though it was a few miles from home, because someone involved was "out of network", I ended up owing them almost 8k. So, we made $25 dollar a month payments for over 2 years. Suddenly, due to no effort on our part the bill showed only a few hundred dollar balance. We paid it off immediately. No idea why the rest was written off, but very thankful.

There are organizations like this that buy and discharge medical debt.

https://ripmedicaldebt.org/

But I think normally the debt is in collections so this may not be relevant to your question. But it could happen to a person in the medical bill context for sure.

quote:

Originally posted by Palm:
There are organizations like this that buy and discharge medical debt.

https://ripmedicaldebt.org/

But I think normally the debt is in collections so this may not be relevant to your question. But it could happen to a person in the medical bill context for sure.

That’s actually very cool. Thanks.

December 2021 seems long enough even to me but I don’t normally pay any medical invoice the first time I get it. I wait until I see that the insurance company paid their part. Sometimes if part of the bill is denied by the insurance, I wait some more because the doctor’s office will resubmit maybe under a different code.

I also download the EOB from the insurance company and compare what the EOB says is my part.


Here’s the relationship between copays and deductible. The deductible is what you have to pay out of pocket first before your insurance shells out a penny. For example, if your copay is 15% with a $100 deductible, when you go for the first time in the year to your doctor and he charges you $70, you’re liable for the whole $70 as that’s part of your deductible. After you’ve paid out $100 for the year, then your copay becomes 15% of what the insurance total amount is which is always less than the billed amount. The doc may bill you $500 but the insurance schedule says $200 for the procedure so the insurance pays $170 to the doctor leaving you the $30 as your copay under the 15% copay rule (and that’s assuming you’ve shelled out $100 already for the year, to reiterate).

quote:

Originally posted by Skins2881:
Yes, I questioned a bill. Just wanted to know what I was being charged for. After a while of not getting an answer I gave up and refused to pay. Then I needed to go in for a cold or something and I said hey I'm giving up, y'all never responded I just want to pay the bill. They said there was no outstanding balance. After several calls to various departments I was told the debt was written off. Never hit my credit. All I wanted to know was why I was charged more than usual.

Jesse,

If that happened to be a PatientFirst, I can tell you exactly what happened.

-Rob

Perhaps someone set a contingent cash discount when they setup your plan. Getting them paid is a problem so it’s an incentive.

Jan 2022 I had a a heart attack. Had a heart cath and got a stent with one night stay in hospital.
I was expecting a hospital bill for expenses not covered by insurance but never got one.
Some of you may recall about my experience of the hospital listing me deceased instead of released. That took several months to get cleared up. Maybe that is why they didn't send a bill, I had it in writing on hospital letter head that THEY made the error.

If they waived it, make sure they don't send you a 1099. If they do, make sure to claim it on your taxes. Don't ask how I know about this.

Also possible that insurance readjudicated the bill. I’ve had situations where insurance has gone back a year later and readjudicated a patient’s bill. Plays hell with our billing system and makes patients think we billed them inappropriately.
Did you ever get an EOB from insurance? Not the hospital, but your insurance? That’s where I’d check if I were really curious..otoh, maybe I wouldn’t look this gift horse in the mouth.

The first Christmas after I met the woman who would become my wife, I bought a Seiko wristwatch as a gift for her.

I bought it at Service Merchandise. Remember them?

I opened an account at the time of purchase in the store. When I gave the clerk my information- address or phone number, I can't remember which- she looked it up and said "Is your name 'King'?" I said no and gave her my name, showed her my DL, got approved. Merry Christmas.

A month and a half later, and still no bill. I went to the store and asked customer service about it. "Name"? They couldn't find the account. "Address"? tickatickatick on the computer.

"Is your name 'King'?"



I gave them all my information again and offered to make a payment, but they couldn't accept payment because there was no account for me, to which to apply it. I told them that in that case, they were out a wristwatch.

A few weeks later, I tried one more time, calling up their customer service number. My main concern was the store one day straightening it out and then I might have a black mark on my credit for non-payment.

"Is your name 'King'?"

This really happened, as improbable as it sounds. It's become a running joke between my wife and me. When things don't add up or we run into difficult customer service: "Is your name 'King'?"

The only thing even close to that was when my wife had back surgery . After a few months we got a bill from the hospital for $60k . Yep , $60k . They claim the surgeon didn't get preauthorization or some such . It got kind of ugly for a while and finally it went to a third party review where my wife was actually able to talk to a real person and explain her situation . The woman was very sympathetic and told her she was going to order the insurance to pay . Thank you Jesus !

We have a local hospital system that does something similar for those that aren't filthy rich who have been making regular payments on their account. After they see that the person has been making a good effort, they waive the rest.

It's a bunch of nuns running a $6.5 billion dollar operation. I once had a bill with them that was fairly substantial when I was young and uninsured. I told them I would like to pay them what at insurer would pay, not the crazy amount they wanted. They gave me two options: You can pay the full amount billed, or we will forgive the entire amount. They wouldn't negotiate, so one of the charities they support got a check from me that year.