[dungle6]

If you have excellent credit you can simply not pay and make them do the work. I had a $1500 dispute. I was getting tired of wasting time. When it went to collections I drafted the standard leave me alone. The funny thing is now the collection company has screwed up twice on some things. It is their prerogative to sue. I doubt they will. If they do it, it will be annoying but I can respond in kind with a countersuit. Oh and the credit score? Dropped about 40 points into the upper 700s. Annoying, but not worth just rolling over and paying.

You can of course negotiate as well.

[e59d134d]

Agreed, this is just part of business for hospitals. We as honest people feel ashamed if we cannot pay bills. But I make an exception medical bills and other unpredictable broken industries (if any).

If someone bought a car or house, they knew their obligations exactly. If they declare bankruptcy, I would lay some fault with them, if not all.

But with medical billing, you cannot get a straight answer. If they cannot tell you what a simple procedure would cost you, then you don't owe them anything.

Also hopefully if enough people don't pay surprise bills, then medical industry would have motivation to simplify their systems.

[seanp2k2]

You'd hope they would simplify their systems, but instead they just throw it into higher risk pools and raise prices for everyone to cover the non-payments.