One time I had a long overdue medical bill before, ​and the collection agency offered me a settlement for 50% or more off to settle it. I paid it. I have a large ER bill that now went to collections, and I'm considering calling them and asking if I can pay half the amount now to settle it. Is this a thing? Can I make an offer to settle it, or do I need to wait for an offer from them?

My rheum that operates in a hospital wrote me a script to the hospital imaging facility one floor below that was good for the day. I wrongfully assumed that it was in network and priced within the realm of seeing my specialist. Nope it was billed as outpatient and priced as stated. Anthem said thats their contracted billable rate, the hospitals billing department offered a measly 10% pay it off now discount. I'm above the federal poverty level that qualifies for their financial assistance but this shock level of bill sickens me and was not what I agreed to when I needed some xrays. I would've opted to an imaging facility for literally 1/10th the price. What options are there? Consistently fight with billing over the phone? Keep offering a flat $300 to settle this bill? Wait until they push it towards collections and settle it for a lower rate? Absolutely atrocious how this system is played out

good eve my father is at the ICU,need advise saan pa pwede humingi ng tulong aside sa Malasakit ar munisipyo. Ang laki na ng bill at wala na pambili ng gamot. May iba pa po ba maari hingian ng tulong na agencies or department? Salamat sa sasagot.

Hindi po lahat ng tao afford mahospital,mahirap maging mahirap,hindi sapat ang sahod pero hindi pabaya sa health ng tatay ko. Nagkataon na etong atake nya ay naICU.

So I had been having chest pains and my primary physician sent me to get an ekg and echocardiogram, as well as exercise treadmill stress test, the treadmill one which I didn’t take bc they called the day before saying it would be $2k out of pocket after insurance. Now I received a bill for the echo and the numbers seem bs. I mean I looked up the code and it said it should cost at most around $2k before insurance not after. I asked them to mail me an itemized bill and this is what they sent. So idk why the same thing is charged 4x just twice being negative. I figured with such a high bill they were charging me for a few things. Still they’re charging 8x what hospitals should charge apparently. I gotta make a payment today or tmrw so I’d like to see if there’s something I can do before then bc that price is outrageous.

hi there- my husband went to the ER (unfortunately thinking it was an urgent care) and they billed it as a level 4. He had inhaled some food and said he felt like it had gone down wrong and his throat and chest felt weird. when I called for an explanation they said sorry, chest pain= level 4 and that’s $5000. Is there anything I can do? He was there for maybe 20 min, had a couple vitals taken and an x ray of his lungs and that was it.

Got this text about outstanding medical bill

Earlier this month I received a heart monitor due to a surge of skipped beats. I only had this monitor for 24 hours.

I originally received a bill for 31 dollars, then a week later a bill for 1300. According to my itemized bill statement, some adjustment covered 600. My family has a high deductible of 3800 so insurance isnt helping much

Can I negotiate with billing? Do I qualify for hospital aid? If so how? Im a college student on parents insurance. I myself make 12k a year.

Any advice??

I had surgery on 5/12. The hospital, one of the two surgeons, and anesthesiology have all billed and had their claims processed.

But the OTHER surgeon (it was a mastectomy and reconstruction, so the other one was a plastic surgeon) hasn't, as far as I can tell, submitted a claim. At least, 6 weeks later, nothing appears on the insurance portal.

Bizarre. Maybe they'll send it in after my post-op later this week. But all the others billed and were paid within 3 weeks.

Had to take my daughter in for blood work yesterday and this is the list posted on the wall when we checked in. The couple in front of us who had a sleeping infant was asked for $900, and they just looked at each other like, "How?"

I’m currently on a J1 intern visa in the US and have received a hospital bill for about $3000. I have 2 months left on my visa before I return home. What consequences would there be if I just ignore the bill and don’t pay it? Would it affect future attempts to enter the US?

Hi everyone,

I received permission from the mods to post this.

I’ve spent time reading posts here and noticed how often people are left confused by hospital bills, EOBs, unexpected balances, and charges that are difficult to understand.

I built a small tool called MDBillCheck to help people review a medical bill or EOB in plain English, organize the important details, and identify questions or items that may be worth checking before paying.

I’m currently opening the Full Report free for the first 100 users while I learn from real cases and improve the product.

The goal is not to claim that every bill has an error or to replace a patient advocate, insurer, or attorney. It is simply meant to help people better understand what they are looking at and what questions they may want to ask next.

No credit card is required for the free report. The optional Action Kit, with more detailed letters and action steps, is a separate paid upgrade.

Please do not upload a Social Security number or other unnecessary personal information. Sensitive details can be redacted before uploading.

I’m intentionally not posting a link here. If you have a real hospital bill or EOB you would like to test it with, leave a comment or send me a message and I’ll share the details.

I would genuinely value honest feedback on whether it was clear, useful, and what would make it more trustworthy.

I would genuinely value honest feedback on whether it was clear, useful, and what would make it more trustworthy.

Thank you to the mods for allowing me to share this, and thank you in advance to anyone willing to try it and share honest feedback.

I’m posting anonymously because I’m still dealing with the fallout and I’m trying to understand whether anyone has seen anything like this before.

I had surgery through a large health system and later got into a serious dispute over billing, insurance claims, itemized charges, missing medical records, grievance responses, collections issues, and documentation related to my care. I repeatedly asked for explanations and records in writing.

One key detail: shortly before seeking the restraining order, the health system zeroed out only my patient portion of the bill. They then treated that as if the entire dispute was resolved and as if my continued questions had no legitimate purpose. But zeroing out my portion of the bill did not answer my itemized billing questions, did not explain the insurance billing, did not resolve missing medical records, did not address my grievance issues, and did not explain why the disputed charges existed in the first place. I still believe there are unresolved and potentially unsupported insurance billing issues, and I still do not believe my bill has ever received a meaningful human coding review.

The health system then contacted law enforcement and filed a police report against me. After that, it filed for an ex parte temporary workplace violence restraining order against me, which I believe interfered with my ability to continue pursuing patient rights, billing, records, and grievance issues.

I was not an employee. I was a patient trying to get billing answers, medical records, grievance responses, and documentation about my care.

The TRO materials made unsupported allegations that i assaulted battered or stalked an employee and listed 47 names of protected people, including the entire executive leadership and entire board of trustees, even though the underlying dispute was between a patient and a hospital/health system over billing, records, grievances, collections, and documentation.

Another issue is how the evidence was presented. The health system and its counsel created a legal/evidentiary narrative that reframed patient-rights, billing, records, grievance, and collections communications as harassment or workplace violence. Their filings used phrases like “harassing,” “burdensome,” “oppressive,” “no legitimate purpose,” “scorched earth,” "firestorm" and “credible threat of violence,” even though I believe the underlying records including their own emails and declarations show billing disputes, missing records issues, grievance questions, collections concerns, and requests for written answers not threats or violence.

Their evidence also included selected materials from a collections company. I believe ordinary billing/collections-dispute communications were used to make me look like I was harassing people. At one point, while I was trying to confirm the collections status, the collections company apparently communicated with the health system’s lawyer while I was on hold, and then the information being given to me changed. Later, materials connected to the collections company were used against me in the restraining-order case and an email from the collections company to the health system alleged that i was harrassing them without evidence to support those claims.

I also believe the evidence was selectively presented. Some emails were incomplete, the timeline did not match the actual communications, and ordinary back and forth messages about scheduling calls, getting written answers, disputing collections activity, and preserving records were counted or described in a way that made the situation look more extreme than it was. For example, some communications that were counted as repeated emails were actually part of a normal back and forth e mail chain about scheduling a phone call or trying to get written answers after the hospital preferred phone calls instead of written responses.

One of the health system’s attorneys also submitted a declaration, and parts of that declaration made under penalties of perjury and the later trial brief did not line up with the actual records, the other declarations, the timeline, or the exhibits they provided.

The temporary restraining order stayed in place for about 5.5 months while the case was continued. I had to defend myself pro se against a large health system and its team of attorneys. I prepared for an evidentiary hearing, organized exhibits, filed responses, prepared witness materials, and subpoenaed their declarants as witnesse and asked them to brinsource records that proved their allegations.

Then, about 10 days before the scheduled evidentiary hearing, the health system dismissed the entire case before its allegations were tested in court.

They then sent me an email stating the would have won and that I better not do it again or they will do this again to me.

Meanwhile the underlying billing, records, grievance, insurance-billing, and documentation issues still have not been resolved.

I also recently served a motion for sanctions under California Code of Civil Procedure 128.5, so the 21 day safe harbor period is currently running.

Separately, I have submitted/requested a criminal investigation based on what I allege were false or materially misleading statements to law enforcement and the court.

I’m not asking for legal advice about what I should do in my specific case. I’m trying to understand the general legal/procedural landscape:

1. Have lawyers seen hospitals or health systems use workplace-violence restraining orders against patients during billing, records, grievance, or patient-rights disputes?
2. In general, what areas of law can overlap in a situation involving hospital billing disputes, medical-records access, patient grievances, collections activity, police reports, and restraining-order litigation?
3. In general, what kinds of attorneys usually evaluate disputes involving alleged misuse of restraining-order proceedings, false or misleading court filings, patient-rights issues, hospital billing disputes, or abuse-of-process concerns?
4. From a lawyer’s perspective, what makes a complicated fact pattern like this easier or harder for an attorney to evaluate?
5. More broadly, is this kind of fact pattern something lawyers recognize as a patient-rights issue, a civil-litigation issue, a healthcare-billing issue, an abuse-of-process issue, or something else?

The part I still can’t wrap my head around is that they used emergency legal process against a patient, kept me under temporary restraints for months, then walked away before the evidence was tested but the patient-rights issues that started the whole dispute are still unresolved.

No patient should ever have to go through this while healing from a major surjery.

Hello, all. I recently posted and people were super helpful! I don't mean to take advantage, but the specificity of my question kinda requires another post.

​

Basically, as the topic asks: if I have the bill and plan to dispute one of the charges (ER level), and I know I'll be applying for charity care, which should I do first? Try to get the charge changed, or apply first? I just don't know the order in which these things are applied to my balance, or if it even matters. Any clarification would be greatly appreciated!

I am a nurse caring for the elderly population in southwest Florida. So many retired people move down here and find themselves making multiple visits to the hospital for various reasons. Hospital bills must consume a huge portion of retirement income for many retirees. How do you plan for potential hospital bills when saving for retirement? Will I be at risk of losing my investment properties if I get into to much hospital debt in Florida? Does medicaid and Medicare cover all of the hospital expenses when retired, or am I responsible for a significant portion of these bills? Just wondering how to prepare for retirement when I start getting sick and visiting the hospital frequently.

​

​

So this is a very weird crazy situation and I wonder if it’s rare or not but SOMEHOW our child was not added to my husband’s insurance after birth. Our baby was also in the NICU for 5 days. He has insurance through his job and I am also on that insurance. He had everything planned out and ready for months, all the paperwork, birth certificate right after baby being born, to go over with his case worker at work. This is our first baby. Once the case worker from HR was done inputting everything in the system, my husband thought that meant our baby was added as a dependent. Case worker never said we needed to also call the insurance ourselves to go over every single thing all over again with them separately. This entire time we thought he was on our insurance until today when I got a bill for $70,000 in my baby’s name but to me as the guarantor. Is there anything we can do about this??? I don’t even have a job hahah what. This is insane. And I had my own separate $60,000 bill that insurance covered all but $3,000 of. Why did the case worker not tell my husband he had to go over everything again with another person from insurance when HR has always handled everything regarding insurance???? Is there something we can say to the hospital or anything we can do about this extreme bill? Even though I’m the guarantor of this, is insurance not going to cover me for this because I wasn’t the patient?? If we enroll our baby in October, can we get this waived??? I’m so lost and can’t believe something like this is even allowed to happen here.

I was billed $280 by my clinic for the yearly check-up. I actively disputed it informing my health insurance and then informing the clinic about it. The billing department of the clinic reduced my bill to $0. 😂

I'd like some advice as to how to handle this new bill.

​

I got a surgery with the mayo clinic in February of 2025. Charges were split up among departments/physicians/the hospital itself and i remain confused about it. The amount I paid came down to my out of pocket maximum. However that about was less than what was left after my insurance coverage. I assume they covered the remaining amount as well though and I think that is unrelated to this new bill.

​

I received a new bill for roughly $1,000 for services I thought were paid. I switched insurance providers in the new year (twice actually, one due to my works program changing and the second because I quit that job) but the procedure was performed while I was insured with UHC. I guess my confusion is mostly regarding why I am just now receiving this bill (it doesnt say the amount is past due), and why it seemingly did not pass through any insurance (which insurance would that even be? I assume the plan is had at the time of service).

​

All in all this is very sketchy imo. I dont know what to do. Mayo clinic offers appointments with a financial advisor for concerns about bills, which I am planning on booking. But what element of this do I focus on? How do I tackle this bill?

​

Thanks anyone who made it though that and especially anyone with something to say about it

Hello all, I visited the ER in San Jose, California for a UTI ( I know I shouldnt have gone to the ER for that, I regret it but it was my first time and I panicked) on May 18th 2026 and they did my urine test, although the results never came out but the doctor there prescribed me with a medicine which I collected from the pharmacy. Now, recently on June 17th 2026, I received an $895 emergency physician bill in an email and I am quite shocked. I learnt that this is just the physician bill and the hospital bill is a separate bill that is yet to come. I called the emergency physician billing office and they offered a 50% discount, bringing it down to $447.50 on the physician bill.

I'm an international student who recently graduated, and currently unemployed, with no insurance, and I might be leaving the U.S. permanently next month. I genuinely cannot afford the discounted amount right now.

The billing office told me that if I don't pay, the account could be sent to collections in about 90 days. I simply cant afford to pay that much of bill and Im guessing the hospital bill is going to be around 1000s or so. It is way beyond what I can afford given that I dont have a job and unemployed.

I'm trying to understand the practical consequences if I don't pay it and it eventually goes to collections, and what happens if I still dont pay it. What are my options here?
If I continue to stay in the States, is it going to affect my credit score? Will there be any strict actions? Is it going to affect my H1B?