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It’s optional if you’re poor or a criminal. If you have fixed, easily confiscated assets like property, a brokerage account etc then I think they can and will just go through the courts and get a lien.
The weirdest I had is when some medical equipment company sent me to collections for an $80 brace. They never billed me the regular way for it in the first place, mind you, they billed the insurance company and when the insurance company wouldn't pay, they just sent me straight to collections. Not even the insurance company's fault in this case; when I called them they said it was covered but I hadn't met my deductible, which I'm sure they told the equipment company too.
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They cannot repo your property or hit your credit score. Medical debt is worth even less than regular debt and normal collections agencies won't touch it. Hospitals will happily negotiate your bill down to pennies on the dollar because the chances are, they just won't get anything if you say 'fuck you'.
Acting like an Indian small business owner dealing with contractors will get the debt cleared easily.
So if I’m a respectable middle class person and I don’t want to pay my deductible or whatever, I just email the hospital and say “I don’t want to pay $10,000, how about $500?” and then…they just say “yeah sure, you got us, here’s the link”?
YesChad.jpg
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You call the billing department(call don't email, you need to speak to a person) and say you're not paying the bill they sent you. They will almost immediately begin negotiating the price, because the alternative to half a loaf is literally nothing.
As someone who works in medical admin and billing: this is 100% correct. Anybody who calls me and says they can't pay, I start talking to them about how much they can pay. Because if they decide to just not pay anything there is pretty much nothing practical I can do about that, and we make most of our money from insurance companies anyway so it's not worth the trouble.
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I'm honestly not sure about the laws around medical debt; I am reasonably sure that they do not do this, but consult a lawyer first. I am not a lawyer.
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I would like to stress that I don't know the exact conditions under which this works—so please take this strategy at your own advisement and peril—but I have had multiple hospital visits in my life so far and have gotten away with paying exactly $0 by simply ignoring demands for money. These were organizations that had all of my info, my insurance, knew where I worked and lived, etc—and so far I've experienced no durable negative repercussions.
Your mileage may vary.
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