What can a company or hospital do to you if you refuse to pay your bill?

Question

For example - I took my husband to an ER - where they did nothing for him. He had a rash all over his body, and the doctor we took him to said he couldn't help him and he needed to be seen IMMEDIATELY. So we took him to the ER, but didn't have insurance. I imagined we would be in debt for years, as they would have to do tests and all that - but it was worth it.

Anyway, seriously the dr. LOOKED at him and wrote a prescription. That was it. No tests. No bandages. Nothing. Just looked - said it was a dermatitis gone horribly wrong and wrote him a prescription for cortizone and allergy meds and sent us on our way. We paid 200 dollars, which was expensive for a visit - and left.

Now we have a bill for the DR for 700 and the ER for another 350.

I have refused to pay.

My credit sucks... so I am not worried about that.

But what can any company really do to enforce that bills are paid?

I don't plan on working for a large company or buying a house. We live pretty meagerly and are moving into an RV. LOL

I read tarot for a job and basically we are hippies, lol.

We have no credit cards and don't have any plans on buying a car.

We filed bk 3 years ago - and since then we don't have anything bad on it. We made some mistakes before - but we generally pay our bills on time. Maybe a late here or there now.

Also, I have written letters to each of them to dispute the claim.

Answer 1

All they can do is put it on your credit and send it to collections. I have several ER bills on my credit that should have been paid by patient assistance but for some reason were not entirely covered. Medical bills are not supposed to affect your numerical credit score. However, once the hospital sells it to a collection agency, it will show up as a collection agency, not a medical bill, since you are not worried about your credit, that isn't a problem. My advice: talk to a lawyer. Get a report from the first doctor you talked to that said he could not help you, that advised you to go to the ER. For one thing, you should NEVER EVER have to pay up front for an ER visit, not even at a private ER, which I assume is what you meant by the $200. Or did you mean for the meds? Anyway, if you believe that it was improper care, then talk to a lawyer and sue to at least have the charges dropped and have any follow up care covered. Have you been to another doctor? Did the problem get better? ER docs are NOTORIOUS for crap like this. They get tired of seeing people, so they dismiss everyone that walks in the door as being a hypochondriac. I have been the brunt of this too many times too count, when because I did not have insurance to pay up front for an office visit I ended up in the ER. Again, I think you should speak to a lawyer if the problem was not resolved by the prescribed treatment. Good Luck, I hope your hubby feels better.

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Well, actually, I will amend my statements, they can sue you for it yes, but they will not for the amount that you stated. Why? it would cost them more in legal fees than it will to just write it off to their insurance. The thing about ER's is that they cannot refuse treatment, even if you do not provide them with your real name, or any name at all. And if you send them even a penny a month, or a letter stating intent to pay, then they cannot legally sue you, but in my experience, unless you owe them thousands of dollars, they are not going to sue you to collect. I owe in excess of probably $3000; maybe not that much, but between $1000 and $3000 surely, and they haven't even contacted me in over two years about it. That is probably 5 or 6 separate bills from 3 separate visits. and another thing, each bill is a separate charge, so it would be written off to their insurance separately. The Doctor's, Radiology, Laboratory, etc. , if they did sue you, it would be for each bill separately, can you really see them spending thousands of dollars to take you to court over 350 dollars and 700 dollars respectively? Anyway, like I said, talk to a lawyer, they should do an initial free consultation, but make sure you have everything in order before you go, like a report from the first doctor, the scripts written at the ER any documents they gave you, etc. Also, if you could see the first doc again and have him write up a follow up report, that would be beneficial. anyway, I'll say it again, good luck.

Answer 2

They will not take you to court for this amount as their lawyer costs would be greater than the profit they might receive if they win a judgement. They will eventually sell your debt to a collections agency for pennies on the dollar. Your credit may suck.. but it only takes a few years of being on track financially to have great credit. You can make small monthly payments to get this taken care of... such as 30 or 40 bucks. They won't complain as long as you consistently work on paying the debt. A smarter solution to this problem would've been to go to a stat care or a clinic during normal business hours. OR operating costs are huge, many of which never even turn a profit. This is the price we pay for the best health care in the world. To learn more about money management in a very down to earth way... check out this website. You can listen to podcasts of a daily radio show here as well. The host is Dave Ramsey. Learning his approach to money management and debt can change your life forever. I spend thousands of dollars a year for healthcare.. I know it's no picknick! You may need to use this hospital later on as well... so you don't want to burn that bridge! I wish you the best of luck... and really hope you'll check out some of these shows!

www.daveramsey.com

Answer 3

They'll get a judgement against you and will sell it to a collection agency, then your credit will really suck. But if you don't want to own a house, rent a great apartment, have low car payments on a new car, or work for a big company, it shouldn't be much of a problem.

By the way, there was just an article on Yahoo about all the things affected by credit scores. In addition to the ones I listed, some insurance companies, including car insurance companies are refusing coverage to people with bad credit.

Answer 4

Well, if you don't care about your credit and you don't have any assets and you are self employed, all they can do is file a lawsuit get a judgement and order you to pay it. But you can't sue someone that has no money. I worked at a law office and we would get people wanting to sue people that had no money. We would ask them: Where is the money you want going to come from? Money can't appear out of thin air so that was something the plaintiff would have to consider. The hospital has a lot of money to try and go after you and is probably willing to pay for filing fees etc. but they will just probably send it to a collection agency and it would go on your credit. Attorneys would be more of a hassle to them than you are worth, no offense. Who's going to pay them? You know? It's quite a hassle to the creditor to try going after debtors with non-existent assets. If you don't own a house or car then there's kind of no point. I guess they are sol.

Answer 5

They can file a lawsuit and win it. Then they get a judgement against you. You cannot file bankruptcy or otherwise get rid of a judgement.

What I would do is this. I would write a letter to the hospital indicating that you thought the $200 you paid covered the bill in full. I would also indicate that you are disputing the validity of the bill. They have to take that seriously and respond by searching into it.

I would also contact the doctor you took him to -- ask why they recommended he see the ER if it was just dermatitis.

Answer 6

Eventually they can take you to court. And try to sue you for the money. I know they will send you a bill with a minimum payment due. But even if you send like $10 to prove that you are trying to pay something on it each month, I think the court (if it gets that far) would see that as something, if you can prove that you've been trying and that is the best you can do at the moment.

I know its frustrating that you feel like they really didn't do anything. But they still provided a service to you and I'm sure tons of other people feel the same way, like its a waste of money. But if everyone just doesn't pay, the next time, your bill will be even more. Because they have to cover the costs somehow

Answer 7

If ur credit is already screwed then nothing to worry because u cant get blood out of a tomato. They will continue to send u the bills and turn over the situation to ur local credit bureau. But if ur family is in a low income situation next time go to the e.r. at ur county hospital. U need to go to the welfare office to see if u qualify for health cards.

Answer 8

Generally, they turn you into a collections agency, put it on your credit report, and in some cases, may take you to court and garnish your wages.

One thing many people don't know, if you call them and explain your extremely broke and would make payments of $1.00 or @$2.00 a month, and will try to send in more if and when you can, they won't put you in collections. Definitely won't garnish your wages, because any judge would see your making an effort. However little it is.

Answer 9

Unless their planning on suing you for a thousand bucks (and their not), other than sending you some rude letters and maybe calling you, there's absolutely nothing they can do!! Good thing we don't have debtor's prisons, huh??