DUmmy lambasted for wanted to pay her Mothers hospital bill after she passed

[Tucker]

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10021888824

global1 (10,084 posts)

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I Went To The Accts Payable Dept Of The Hospital Yesterday To Pay My Mom's Bill's And Found This....
My Mom recently passed away after an extended illness - heart trouble, pacemaker & dementia - and I wanted to close out on any and all of her bills that were incurred throughout her illness. Now this is after I've been getting statements from the hospital that I owed money and a couple of badgering follow-up calls. I've also been receiving letters from the insurance companies that say - This Is Not A Bill - and at the bottom of the statement it says - You May Still Owe - and gives a $ amount.

So I wanted to close out and pay up anything I owed to stop the letters and calls and put this all behind me.

What I found out is that they couldn't give me a total $ amount of what I owed. They couldn't even provide me with a statement that I can check against the letters/statements I've been receiving. Then they told me that any lab expenses, MD expenses and radiology expenses are all billed separately by the various departments within their system and I'd have to contact each one separately to find out what I owed.

Now mind you all of these expenses were incurred in the same hospital - with the MD's on the staff of the hospital and in their system - and in the radiology and lab departments of the same hospital.

They couldn't give me one itemized bill with all the expenses listed.

This in my opinion is idiotic. This is why health care cost so much. They have at least four and probably more billing and accounting departments within their system where there is tremendous overlapping of tasks and costs to maintain.

They wouldn't take my money yesterday. I'm now going to wait until I get calls from collection services now - because after all I've been through with healthcare providers during my Mom's illness and now with having to pay the bills - I've had it.

This is why we need single payer. Healthcare in general needs to consolidate billing and prevent over-duplification of such services.

It makes sense to receive one statement each month - just like I get with my credit cards - so that all expenses are itemized and could be paid in a timely fashion.

I don't even know - when I get the statements that I get - if they are from legitimate sources. They don't identify the hospital or health system. I don't know if they are scam statements from some entity that is trolling the obituaries in the newspaper and trying to take advantage of the survivors that are left paying the bills. I can see where some scam company sets up shop and sends bills to recently deceased people - and in the fuss of closing an estate - bills are paid for services that weren't even incurred.

Something needs to be done. I'm curious if others here have run into the same?

Two years ago, I ended up in the emergency room with Kidney stones. It was on a Good Friday and I had just got home from eating a slab of ribs. As I didn't know what was happening, I thought that I was being punished for eating Park on Good Friday. I've never experienced such pain.

Anyway, I received several different bills from the hospital. The hospital, emergency room services and the attending physician all sent a bill.

former9thward (5,088 posts)
4. Your mother's bills are not yours.

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Did your mother have any assets when she passed? If not you can shred the bills. You are not responsible for her debts.

global1 (10,084 posts)
8. There Are Assets - Not Much - But I'm For Paying What's Rightly Needed To Be Paid.....

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She consumed services and incurred the debts. Insurance and Medicare will pay their share and I only think it's fair for me to pay off the remainder or balance that wasn't covered.

However, in order to do that I need to know the dollar amount and would like to be able to get that information from one source - seeing that all her care was provided in the same hospital and in the same system - their MD's, labs, x-ray depts, home care, etc.

I will not shred bills or not - not pay them off - as if I did - I would be contributing to problem and the rising cost of insurance that would cause insurance companies to pass on the bill in the form of increased premiums to others.

If I did that - I would be part of the problem.

A DUmmy with morals. I'm shocked.

former9thward (5,088 posts)
10. You will be part of the problem if you pay unjust bills.

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I went through this when my father passed and all sorts of bills arrived that were basically fake. Unless they could prove they provided the service I did not pay.

There's the DUmmies that we know and love.

SoCalDem (98,436 posts)
23. Return anything mailed to her ...mark it "DECEASED"..

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Eventually they will all get their ducks in a row, and if there us anything they really want to be paid for, they WILL seek you out and mail things addressed to YOU.

In the meantime, use her assets to attend to her burial costs, your own lost wages (if you work outside the home), and perhaps set the rest aside for any taxes she may owe..

FarCenter (11,252 posts)
6. Unless you cosigned to pay for her care, or unless you are the executor of her estate, not yours.

Ganja Ninja (15,220 posts)
7. I wouldn't pay any of them.

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First off I doubt you're responsible for her bills. Second if they can't tell you what you owe then why ask? If they haven't contacted you then don't worry about it. If they send you a nasty letter send them back a copy of her death certificate.

If there's any money in your Mom's estate spend it or put it in an account not in her name.

Lugnut (8,281 posts)
18. +1

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That's exactly what I did two years ago when my mother died. She owned nothing but personal items and a burial account to cover her final expenses.

I'd bet that if she didn't have the burial acct., you would have let the County put your Mother in a paupers grave.

And throw in a bouncy for good measure.

hobbit709 (23,936 posts)
11. The hospital here twice tried to bill the wrong insurance on me

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then tried to say I owed them since the insurance didn't pay it.
And each time it seemed as the ER computer did not communicate with the billing computer.
The first time when I got the bill it said it was rejected by insurance company A because I wasn't covered-we had switched to a different company in the 4 years since the previous ER visit.
I called them up and told them they had billed the wrong insurance company and they ER had taken my new insurance card and gotten all the info they needed. I told them to resubmit it to the proper insurance and it would be paid. I was told that they didn't do that, I had to do it for them.
My response was "So you expect me to do your legwork for YOUR screwup?"
I told them they had 3 options: 1. They could resubmit it to the right insurance and get paid
2. I could do their work for them and I would bill them for my time and effort-which would be equal to or greater than the amount they wanted from me
3. They just just write it off now.
I was told they wouldn't pay the bill if I submitted one and I told them then I would turn that bill over to a collection agency.
About 3 weeks later I get a statement saying it was paid by the insurance.

Happened again a few years later with the same results.

Bigmack (6,222 posts)
26. My ex is part of a "death panel" at a health insurance company...

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... her advice is (always) "Don't send them a penny.... no matter what they do or say or send you.... don't send them a penny."

Built into the health insurance business is the unwritten law... "Bill everybody for the maximum... or more... You'll only get some back, but it will be enough to make a big profit."

So much bullshit.

[Tucker]

No wonder healthcare is so expensive.  Hospitals have to mark up their prices to cover for people that don't pay.

It's the liberal way.

Why pay when you feel that it is a civil and constitutional right. Entitled to it. [DU mode off]

[Chris_]

former9thward (5,088 posts)
10. You will be part of the problem if you pay unjust bills.

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I went through this when my father passed and all sorts of bills arrived that were basically fake. Unless they could prove they provided the service I did not pay.

No wonder healthcare is so expensive.  Hospitals have to mark up their prices to cover for people that don't pay.

Imagine if Toyota gave away one out of every five or eight or ten cars it built.  They wouldn't stay in business for long.

[Zeus]

We have one Hospital system in the area like that. If you go there for any treatment over the next few months you will receive separate bills for services rendered from everybody and anybody perhaps even the janitor.

Another major hospital had ( They have since been boughtout by Scott and White and converted to a childrens hospital ) a setup where when you checkout to leave they gave you a printout of the time you arrived then who you saw, what time they saw you,     what they did and charges for services . This was for anyone you saw and labs and whatever. when you left you knew exactly what the charges were.

[Undies]

I wonder why Medicare (as secondary) didn't pick up the balance after insurance.  I'm sure a heart patient with dementia was on Medicare.  I am.

I just don't believe this OP's testimony of terrible woe. 

[JohnnyReb]

Medical billing....the only thing in the world that can compete with government for "being F***ed up".

[USA4ME]

global1

It makes sense to receive one statement each month - just like I get with my credit cards - so that all expenses are itemized and could be paid in a timely fashion.

So if you have 3 credit cards, they all get together and bill you on one statement, right?  No?  Well, doctors are separate businesses and they bill separately, too.  Doesn't matter that they all work at the same hospital, they aren't hospital employees.  Idiot.

.

[Wineslob]

I'm sure a heart patient with dementia was on Medicare.  I am.

Umm.....

[Undies]

Umm.....

Explains a lot, dud'nit?

[Wineslob]

Explains a lot, dud'nit?

Luv ya Undies.   

[MrsSmith]

Medical billing....the only thing in the world that can compete with government for "being F***ed up".

Yep. The last time we owed money to a hospital, we got a "non-payment" notice about every 3 or 4 months. I'd call, they'd check the account and apologize.  Every time, I made the point that the billing department is responsible for a huge amount of negative PR! 

[vesta111]

Some times there is a screw up, we got a huge bill from the hospital that claimed the insurance had rejected it.

We turned the bill over to HR at work that handles our insurance and were told the bill had been paid.

The Hospital still denied receiving any payment even with the paper work showing they did.  Back to HR that told us not to worry, this was between our insurance Company and the Hospital now, not our problem.

Wonderful, 6 months later we start getting these bills from the hospital that were threatening about our credit rating and even worse.    This time the advice was for us to pay the hospital each month and when this was resolved we would get our money back.    You think ?????? 

Every time we went to the Hospital accounting office we were told that even as we had the insurance papers showing they were paid that, it was not in the hospitals  computering system.

We kept sending in money every month to protect our credit rating and kept bugging our insurance company.

This went on for 2 frigging years, finally when we paid off the last payment and insisted we get a paid in full receipt, we sent this to our insurance company and explained we wanted our out of pocket expense's reimbursed.   Some where out there are the Gods of Humor, they must have been holding on to their big belly's as they laughed so hard.

   

[zeitgeist]

And the last time I was in the hospital billed less than the insurance company allowed.  Insurance sent them the allowed!  I am still scratching my head over that one, it was almost 6k more than the hospital billed.  My out of pocket was not that bad, less than 1k  and I thought the hospital did a fine job but I have never heard of an insurance company paying a 'bonus'.

[DefiantSix]

Medical billing....the only thing in the world that can compete with government for "being F***ed up".

Now stop for a second and ask yourself how the situation got this screwed up?

The health insurance system, and the volumes of billing "standard practices" associated with it got their start with leftists using the coercive power of the FEDERAL GOVERNMENT to completely screw up something that at one time, functioned quite well.

Everything government touches, it destroys. Everything.  This is why the only arm of the Government that functions as designed is the MILITARY. 

[Traveshamockery]

Everything government touches, it destroys. Everything.  This is why the only arm of the Government that functions as designed is the MILITARY. 

Yep, and it ends up costing six times as much as it normally should.  Imagine what it's going to look like after Obamacare is in full effect. 

[zeitgeist]

Now stop for a second and ask yourself how the situation got this screwed up?

The health insurance system, and the volumes of billing "standard practices" associated with it got their start with leftists using the coercive power of the FEDERAL GOVERNMENT to completely screw up something that at one time, functioned quite well.

Everything government touches, it destroys. Everything.  This is why the only arm of the Government that functions as designed is the MILITARY.