r/HospitalBills • u/CommercialConstant59 • Feb 08 '25

Hospital-Emergency How should I approach this major hospital bill ($253,000)

I got in a dirt bike accident resulting in 2 fractured vertebrae’s,a broke arm a slit wrist and a broken orbital socket. I was in the hospital 6 days I did not ride the ambulance as I was found bleeding out on my bed. (University medical center in Lubbock did the repairs) With that being said I got a call stating I need to set up automated payments for the bill. I told them I would contact them back and just not sure how to approach the situation. I will never pay off the debt I’m only 21 and make $19 an hour($35000 a year). I tried applying for the financial aid but could do to my income being $300 over the monthly limit I rent a house payments right around $500 a month utilities tend to come out to right around $350 I wouldn’t by any means say I’m doing well financially I’m scraping by between groceries and gas I don’t tend to have a lot of money left on the table. I’m just lost and need a bit of advice Thank you for any provided.

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u/throwawaypf1201 Feb 08 '25

Ask for an itemized bill. If you have your CPT codes, you can use https://lowermedicalbill.com/ or https://www.fairhealthconsumer.org/ to find Medicare or insurance rates, append those to your bill and negotiate it down. Be assertive. DM me if you need to process a lot of codes, can help here since I had to do it in the past..

2

u/Direct_Surprise2828 Feb 09 '25

Thank you for posting this! I know years ago I had heard about a manual that has all the codes in it that a person could purchase, although it was a little bit expensive. The person I had heard about it from I think carved something like $10,000 Off their bill.

2

u/ilovegluten Feb 10 '25

You don’t even need to know anything to get chunks taken off. You call and ask for a discount to pay the bill and then they reduce it. By a huge amount. If they don’t say oh I am sorry I still can’t afford. Call back another time.  Additionally if the place takes Medicaid and or Medicare they have different obligations and the hospital can write off a huge portion of your bill. Additionally, do you qualify for mediciad in your state? If so the hospital can help enroll you and get everything retro covered. See if they have sliding scale otherwise. 

OP needs to just keep pressing for a lower amount and eventually OP will get thr right person. 

2

u/FitzwilliamTDarcy Feb 12 '25

You are an excellent human being.

1

u/throwawaypf1201 Feb 12 '25

Thank you <3

1

u/traumakidshollywood Feb 09 '25

Wow. Does this work for dental, do you know?

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u/throwawaypf1201 Feb 09 '25

Unfortunately dental prices are a black box, the hospital transparency act doesn't mandate them to give data. However, https://www.fairhealthconsumer.org/dental does give estimates, but these prices are not the best for negotiations.

1

u/traumakidshollywood Feb 09 '25

Yeah. And my dentist is in Bev Hills. 😂 Thank you for this resource. Very helpful.

1

u/sdedar Feb 09 '25

They usually will negotiate a percentage of “amount generally billed” which can be lower than Medicare rates

1

u/throwawaypf1201 Feb 09 '25

I would recommend starting off the negotiation with 50% of medicare cost per CPT code since that's usually the lowest "generally billed" amounts are. I think this is also fair. If they want to increase on CERTAIN CODES, settle to 80-90% of Medicare cost as final for those codes only.

If they disagree and send it off to debt collections, do the above negotiation with debt collections as well. Being reasonable and telling them this is fair market value helps.

If you want lower than 50% of Medicare, need to be more aggressive in negotiations :P

1

u/BuddyBuddyson Feb 09 '25

You're a lovely person.

1

u/throwawaypf1201 Feb 10 '25

Aw thank you <3 You are a lovely person as well!

1

u/scotty813 Feb 10 '25

A couple of years ago, I broke my neck. I was billed $94K. I negotiated all of my bills and had everything paid in full for $6700.

Healthcare prices are based upon dealing with insurance companies that offer ridiculous low reimbirsment. The magic words are, "I'm self-pay."

1

u/throwawaypf1201 Feb 10 '25

Did you have insurance when you did negotiation?

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u/scotty813 Feb 10 '25

No, I did not, I was self-employed at the time. However, a couple of years later, I got a job that included insurance. If I had had that insurance at the time, it would have only saved $1700.

When I did have insurance, I would always ask for the self-pay price before giving my insurance information.

1

u/throwawaypf1201 Feb 10 '25

Thank you for your insight

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u/CommercialConstant59 Feb 10 '25

Very sorry I never responded going through hundred of comments very grateful for all the responses I’ll get a itemized breakdown tomorow and go from there I will be in contact with once I get the breakdown I’ll have very little idea as to what I’m looking at

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u/[deleted] Feb 10 '25

👍🏽

1

u/BuyMeARose Feb 10 '25

Who do you negotiate with?

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u/throwawaypf1201 Feb 10 '25

Provider billing department

1

u/RackCityWilly Feb 10 '25

Hi, can I contact you? My wife recently got a huge $5k bill even though she has insurance and it was just some lab work. Please, we don’t know what to do and she doesn’t make a lot of money. I think $16.50 or so.

2

u/Desperate_Culture_75 Feb 11 '25

I'm not the poster that you are responding to, but I am a medical coder w 15yrs of coding/billing experience.

Errors happen during the billing process because it's not entirely automated and there are still humans inputting much of the info. That said, $5k is way too high for standard labs. You need to ask the lab billing people for the cpt codes that were billed and how many units were billed per lab. You also need to ask what diagnosis was used. If the diagnosis used isn't one that your insurance will pay, then the lab billing people need to reach out to the Dr's office and get better or more appropriate diagnosis codes.

You're wife can also contact her insurance company to find out why the bill was denied. Don't let the lab billing people push you around! If they want their money, they need to do their job and make sure the info billed to your insurance is correct.