I agree with BipolaRNurse; I am currently a Practice Manager for a clinic and we have exactly what she mentioned; we have all sorts of programs to help out; we understand that not every patient will be able to pay there bill so we offer certain programs to help out; even if they don't qualify we are pretty flexible when it comes to payment plans and some programs will forgive all medical debt; some clinics have it and as far as I know all hospitals offer something to help with getting care you might not otherwise be able to afford.

I also deal with medical bills myself and I have found my best tip is to budget; plan for that into the monthly budget. I typically see my Cardiologist biweekly so I always budget his copays into my monthly visit and at least one visit with my primary doc even though I don't see him monthly anymore I still like to be on the save side and budget that into it since you can't exactly plan when you are going to get sick.

I am sorry you are dealing with this.