Did you know you can negotiate the medical bill you receive from a hospital?

It's true.

A year or so ago I was in immense pain. My lower back hurt and then the pain spread to my groin.

It was unbelievable pain. So bad I couldn't drive. I asked my daughters to call their mom, my ex-wife, to get a ride to emergency.

On the drive I heaved my guts out into a bowl in her car. Once there I continued heaving through the check in procedure.

I have a doctor, but no health insurance.

They got my address etc. and then put me on a gurney in a corridor.

There I lay, moaning and groaning for an hour.

Nothing happened.

No care, except for my ex-wife, bless her heart.

Then the doctor appeared looking at a clipboard, told me he suspected it was a kidney stone, but wanted to do tests. A technician wheeled me away, told me I should stop moaning, and when we arrived at the room where the tests would be done told me to "get off the gurney," and then did a CAT scan. I remember telling him he should say "please. " He replied, "oh, yes, please," but he laughed when he said it.

An hour later they read the scan, saw the stone, and hooked me up to an IV and started the pain killer cruising through my veins. Twenty minutes later I was better.

"Stone got lodged going around a corner," said the kind doctor. "Should pass within twenty-four hours."

A little later we left.

My total stay in emergency was between three or four hours.

Then the bill arrived a month later.

$6000.

There were no details of what constituted the expenses, just the bill.

"We don't itemize anymore" said one hospital administrator I spoke with, "but if you pay the bill off within 14 days of receiving it we'll give you a 40% discount. That's what the insurance companies pay."

So now we were down to $3600.

That's $900 an hour for my stay at emergency.

But I thought I might be able to do better. I wanted to pay them something for their services, but I wanted to pay a fair market value.

"I want to negotiate," I said.

"I can't do that," she replied.

"Who can?" I asked.

She fidgeted, and gave me a name and a title.

The next day I met with the name and title.

She had power.

The power to negotiate bills.

We locked horns.

She was good.

So was I.

I'm sure you can imagine the conversation.

It was intense. She was fighting for the hospital, me for my checkbook.

One phrase that I kept repeating to her was, "I want to pay you something; you did help me, but I want to pay you a fair market value for services received."

I mentioned the technician, the stay in the corridor.

She mentioned all kinds of time payment plans, programs, and forms I could fill out.

Not my style.

Finally she said the words I was waiting to hear.

"What exactly did you have in mind?"

"A thousand bucks," I replied.

She scoffed.

The room was hot.

We were dead-locked.

We both took a breath.

"What's the best you can do?" I asked realizing she would have to answer to her superiors.

She tapped on her electric adding machine.

"$2300," she replied. "We have our bills to pay too."

I sensed she was growing weary, at the end of her rope. We'd been at it for fifteen or twenty minutes.

"Okay, I said, make it $2000 and you have a deal. I reached for my wallet to make my point.

She hit the buttons on the adding machine again. It clicked out a white cash register size receipt.

I held the credit card in front of her.

Visa. Platinum.

She glanced at the card, back at the adding machine, thought a moment, then smiled at me.

"I'll draw up the paper work," she said ripping the ticker tape out of the adding machine and taking the card from my outstretched hand.

Still, I wasn't completely satisfied. I wish I had gone longer, offered to split the difference between my $1000 and her $2300, but something told me that was as far as we were going to get.

I had received a 66% discount on my bill.

I haven't had health insurance since 1999, so that would have been six years of no premiums, which for me would be $800 a month, or $48,000 for six years. (Because I have a pre-existing condition, Graves Disease, insurance companies don't want to cover me unless they can charge these high premiums). If I calculate my $2000 bill, divide it by six years I arrive at $333. per year, or $27.75 a month.



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