re: Nearly every county in the nation sees patients regardless of their ability to pay.
Yea. Let me tell you how that works.
A person without medical insurance goes to an emergency room. In most cases they will get treated, but in some cases they will get turned away.
Then the bills start coming. And guess what, the non-insured person get's billed at the "list" price for all doctors and services, at least 3 to 4 times as much as an insurance company is willing to pay for the same service. A visit that might cost an insurance company $600 can turn into a $5000 total bill for an uninsured person. The very person who can afford it least.
So they don't pay it, and the hospital takes it as a loss, right? No way. They set their collection department after the person. They are relentless.
I've seen this all first hand, from a person that needed my help. I've tried to negotiate the bills with the hospital and their doctors, and managed to get a 10% discount from the obscenely inflated price that the non-insured person has to pay, but only if they paid within two weeks, which was impossible.
BTW, in this particular case, the hospital never even treated the problem, just diagnosed it, and sent the person home for the home care people to treat. A couple of hours, over $5k in total bills, for a person that has nothing.
So when you find those free hospitals, let me know. I'll pass on the info.
John |
