After insurance payed on hospital stay.the hospital wont us to pay over 500. a month.can they make you pay .?

Question

my husband went into hospital. his bill was over 82 thousand. the insurance payed an the hospital said we had to pay $581.00 a month for 2yrs.we told them we had other doctors bill to pay too. can they make us pay the $581.00 a month

Answer 1

Not really..hospitals usually want their money paid in 24 months or less.  Did they offer you Charity Care?  If not, I would definately ask for it and apply.  They take it soley from the federal poverty guidelines, so depending upon how many people in the family and your income, you may very well be eligible.  Doesn't hurt to ask for any type of discount.  And if you do have to pay it all, it wouldn't be a bad idea to open a Health Savings Account so at least you'll pay for it with pre-taxed dollars and don't have to worry about it at tax time.

Answer 2

$581 per month times 24 months is 17% of $82,000.  That is actually low.  Most insurance requires you to pay at least 20%.

Answer 3

Depends if your insurence paied all of your bill if so then take the bill up with your insurence, you should do this anyways to make sure. then if they didnt your gonna have to pay...

Answer 4

nope... not unless they take you to court and even then the amount you pay would be a lot lower.. they can call and harass you and send you notices out the butt.. butt without a court order  they cant MAKE you pay anything..

Answer 5

Once the insurance has paid all they are going to, and check with them to be sure. Write a letter to the hospital and offered them a payment plan, something you can afford.

Include the first payment, say you offer $50.00 a month paid on the first. Then keep making the payments on a regular basis. If the hospital accepts the payment, you should be ok it you keep up the payment plan. They many turn you over to collections but it is not in their best interest to sue you if you are making payments.

They can report it to the credit bureaus but it will not hurt your credit that much.

And remember under the Fair Debt Collection Act you have rights, they must contact you in writing and can not phone you about the debt once you write to them and tell them not to call you and only contact you but mail.

Good luck and I hope you are feeling better. You can pay off this bill given time.

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Answer 6

You will have to settle the debt but not necessarily on the hospital's time table  Offer what you can and make sure you send it monthly.  They would rather have a little per month than to have to write it off.

My son was hospitalized three times in the past 12 months.  His total bills exceeded $60k.  They wanted us to set up a payment plan for around $300 per month.  I offered $50 per month and they accepted.