Paying what you OWE and HIPAA have nothing to do with one another. One previous reader posted that you don't go to the grocery store and tell them you'll pay later. You don't go out to eat or even to the Doctor's office. WHY because you are sick/injured should you not have to KNOW what you, PAY if you can and/or make arrangements if you cannot? It is the PATIENT'S responsibility to pay for their healthcare services. While it's not always a planned situation, it is still the patients responsibility to take care of their expenses. MOST hospitals, non for profit anyhow have payment plans, and other options to help the patients take care of their balances. Times have changed. People know that medical care is not free, and SHOULD know what their copays and deductibles are before they even go to the hospital. We need to take responsibility and quit trying to put it on someone else.

This is what happens when you treat healthcare as a commodity rather than a utility. So long as someone is profiting from your healthcare needs then this sort of outrage will continue. The average American has seen huge increases to their health care cost in the form of co-pays, higher co-insurance rates, and larger deductibles without a commensurate raise in the living wage. Meanwhile insurance companies in particular and hospitals continue to enjoy record profits. Our system is broken and it the ever increasing cost are dragging down the whole economy. Health care is a utility and should be treated as such.

The contract between the payor (insurance company) and the hospital protects you, the member. The hospital is NOT allowed to collect any more than the stated copay listed on your card. If there is no ER copay listed on the card, they can call the number listed on your card to verify coverage/benefits and obtain the copay amount. If they do not call, they are required by contract to submit a claim to the insurance company and any amount owed by the patient may be billed once the claim has been processed.

I had multiple visits to Banner Hospitals in Phx this year. I entered via the ER, but was later admitted. But they still came in trying to collect that ER copay, which is waived if I'm admitted. Every time someone else came in trying to collect money, I just told them I worked it out with the last person and they would leave.

In January I was in the ER at Bayfront Medical in St. Petersburg, FL and required emergency abdominal surgery. A hospital administrator came into my room, while I was bleeding internally and on morphine, and told me that they only had an obligation to keep me stable and that in order to perform the surgery they would require me to pay 20% of my deductible = $1,000.00. I didn't have my purse with me and was under duress and not wanting to cause irreperable harm. Luckily family member was with me and able to pay when I couldn't, I have no idea what would have happened had she not been there. I have insurance and pay my bills, but when you are essentially presented with no option and a demand for money that's wrong!