Patient Success Story of the Month
Last year I had a client hospitalized with COVID for over a week. Luckily, the client had insurance, so the bulk of the hospital stay was covered. Her portion of the bill, however, was over $2300 which was unaffordable for her since she couldn’t work regularly due to chronic health issues. I knew that some hospitals were being reimbursed for COVID care and that it was possible to negotiate this bill, so I decided to call the hospital billing department. I noticed on the bill a statement that read “Call us for Covid Relief Discounts”. I was feeling like this was going to be easy!
I called the billing department and was transferred to multiple people and given conflicting information. I even had one representative tell me the discount was “at the discretion of the account representative”! After lots of back and forth, speaking with multiple employees and escalating the issue, I was finally able to secure a 70% discount for my client.
While this was a win for my client, this interaction just highlights a few things that are infuriating and just downright wrong in healthcare billing. First, if a hospital is offering financial assistance to patients, it needs to be applied in a fair and equitable manner and all employees should be educated about the policy. A financial settlement should not be at the whim of the person who answers the phone. Knowing, however, that often the answer to a healthcare related problem depends on who you speak to, the other lesson from this case is that it pays to call back and try again and again if you need to until you get a satisfactory answer.
Ideally, a patient should be able to call and get a discount that was advertised on their bill without having to contact a patient advocate. The reality, however, is that the healthcare system is broken and sometimes it takes someone who knows the ways in which our system is fractured
to step in to help.
