[franz kafka]

Anyone else drowning in medical debt? I don't know what to do.

[~Christina]

Many of my bills just wind up in collections . I hate it but what can I do ... I owe almost 200.00 to a Neurologist and 250 something to Orthopedic group. I have no way of paying and cheapest payment plan is 50 each per month.

I have no real advice.

I feel your pain

[Calypso2632]

I'm over 50k in medical bills with my local hospital network. From emergency room visits when I was unstable to regular doctors appointments cause they all bill through the same office. About 30k has gone to collections. Another bill for over 20k keeps coming but I can't possibly pay it with no job or income. I have various other bills for like xrays and my psychiatrist. They don't send to collections tho thank god. Just keep working with you. Healthcare costs in America are absurd. I think they just pull random numbers out of their asses. Ugh!!

[BipolaRNurse]

You might want to ask about patient assistance programs. They're the best-kept secret in the medical world. You'd have to include tax forms and proof of income with your application, but these documents are easy to find for most people and it's certainly worth doing a little digging if you need to. Some clinics/hospital systems will forgive up to 100% of your debt if you're low-income. Even if you're not, they will almost always accept a payment plan you can afford. Definitely check with your clinic or group to see if one of these programs is available to you. Good luck!

My 10 hospitalizations (grand total almost 4 months) and 11 IOPs (one lasted six months) exhausted our savings about eight years ago. Since then, we pay credit card debt with home equity loans, my husband's side job, and family "gifts". Eventually even they aren't enough. We can barely afford where we live. We're stuck for now, though.

My husband wants to move to Europe. He has joint US and EU country citizenship. Moving to certain countries in Europe would actually provide a safer more secure life for us financially and in terms of healthcare. It is sad, because we love the US. My family has been in the US since as far back as the early 1700s. I feel a deep love for my state and American heritage.

What should people do to prevent future medical debt? Vote for candidates that support universal healthcare in the US or Medicare For All. Or, beg the top 1% in the country to use some of their tax breaks to help us out. Consider starting with Rupert Murdoch. Or maybe the Trump Charitable Foundation will help? Oh, I forgot. That's closed down because of misuse (personal use) of funds.

[TheSeaCat]

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.

[bizi]

I have had hospital debt that I paid $5 every 2 weeks for years. then the collections company changed hands and started calling regularly and we finally paid off the debt.It was from a 3 day hospital stay. very expensive!
bizi