[jumbopapa]

It is my understand that it is highly unlikely an uninsured person would ever pay anything close to the billed "price." Same is true for insurance companies.

Edit: Some are telling me this isn't true, but what does a hospital have to gain from someone filing bankruptcy? Why would they charge such high prices that no one can afford? I would think that some money is better than no money.

[gen220]

There are many complicated reasons that a hospital would charge more than people can afford. One factor is that it looks better on their balance sheet to have uncompensated medical costs. This is exactly why insurance companies never pay the full price, and why nobody pays the difference. It’s accounting magic to make hospitals etc look like nonprofits and claim subsidies.

That being said, there’s been a trend in the US recently, where hospitals have very aggressively gone after unpaid bills of the uninsured, because some administrators see it as money they’re leaving on the table. It’s more prevalent in rural areas, where there’s often only one hospital to go to, and consumers have no choice but to go to the hospital with a terrible reputation.

In some cases, they’ve convinced the judicial system to garnish the uninsured person’s wages, to get “their money back”. IMO it’s clearly illegal and it won’t last much longer, but yeah the system is crazy. :/

[Retric]

Bankruptcy results in them getting as much money from you as possible as well as funds from the government. Further, as most hospitals are local monopolies they have little incentive to change. It’s a win win for them as long as they can receive significant amounts of money.

Actual poor people are a slightly different story and often left alone fairly easily.

[taurath]

Unfortunately that isn’t much of a factor in reality, and I have the receipts in my filing cabinet to prove it.

Insurance/“cash” can “negotiate” but at the end of the day the average hospital stay is near $4000/day.

[MandieD]

Good God. I had a small surgery in Germany about 10 years ago that is usually outpatient, but I passed out afterwards, so the doctor had me admitted for overnight observation. Total bill for surgery, lab and the stay in a room with another American lady who was on bedrest with triplets (!!!): 1400 EUR, which my American insurer paid with absolutely no arguments. This was the full retail, premium “private patient” rate - most Germans wouldn’t have even seen a bill that size.

A friend in the US had the same procedure outpatient, and it was $6000, $1200 of which she was responsible for. On the upside, they gave her 30 Vicodin for the post-op pain and no follow-up about said opioids, where I only got a week's worth of Tramadol (much less potent) and a follow-up with my regular doc who wanted to know at what rate I was taking them. My friend was slightly tempted to sell her leftovers...