If someone is taken to ER on a 5150 basis who is responsible for the ambulance bill or the hospital bill?

Question

How can someone who is not alert and oriented sign a form stating they are responsible for the bill when they were told they overdosed on medications and paperwork showed they were unable to sign forms. They don't remember anything from their stay at the hospital.They were completely out of it and not knowledgeable at all then two weeks later they get the chart and it shows a signature and a witness to it. The patient never had insurance and they were under mental health care at the time with an agency but they are planning to find out who is responsible for the upcoming bills. The person has tried to find out the answers from an atty and they said to get on medi-cal and wait for the bills. they can't get blood out of a turnip. How can the person pay rent and other expenses to live? Should I get on SSI? Does anyone know anything about this? What can I do besides trying to get a job so I don't loose everything like my car, or my apartment? I have never helped anyone who has been 5150...

Answer 1

I'm not exactly sure what a 5150 is but I used to work in registration in an emergency room and when people were brought in that had overdosed on meds or alcohol, or were psychotic they were not asked to sign any form saying they responsible for any bill. People like that are unable to give informed consent for anything because they don't know what they are signing. They are evaluated by a doctor, observed for several hours until they sober up, and then most times commited to another hospital for treatment. But you are responsible for the ER bills whether you signed anything or not because you received treatment in an emergency situation, they HAD to treat you. Now whether you pay those bills is something different. If you don't have insurance, you can apply for medicaid and hope that you qualify it will go retro and cover the visit (this can and does happen alot). Even if you can pay $5 a month, call the hospital and tell them, they'll be happy with that! The bad news is the hospital will send the bills to a collection agency and it will show up on your credit report. The good news is creditors can't look at medical bills when they are deciding to extend credit to you.

Good luck!

Answer 2

Well SSI takes years to get. If you can't work you may be able to get some type of help from the goverment. And bad news? You owe the money. If they bill you try to get on a payment plan even if you get Medi-cal that is a past bill they won't cover it.