Hello Reddit community,
I'm a fellow Redditor from Italy and I'm really in deep need of help. Me and my wife traveled to the US last year. During our trip we had to go to the ER in a hospital there (in Las Vegas). Our visit at the ER lasted about 1 hours, at most 1.5 hours. It was nothing really serious (a mild genital infection), they checked us, prescribed the drugs and released us.
We made a travel insurance before the trip of course (which covered health and hospital expenses among other things), the lady at the hospital before letting us go asked our insurance papers/contracts and made copies.
Then, months after our trip to the US, bills started coming in. The insurance we bought works this way: you pay the bills first and then the insurance refunds you what you paid. Our insurance covered unlimited expenses if we had to be recovered for more than a day at the hospital and covered about €1300 each (€2600 total) for ER expenses (our case, unfortunately).
So we first received bills, from a certain SHADOW EMERG PHYSICIANS PLLC, for about $1000 each; we were expecting to receive some bills to pay but not that high for about one hour at the ER! Anyway, our insurance covered us for €1300 each so it was enough, we paid (wasn't easy since we're not rich at all) and got refunded.
After some months again we received more bills, this time form a credit agency here in our Europe (Global Credit Solutions AG, on behalf of the US hospital we went to): about $3700 for me and $3200 for my wife respectively. The credit agency told us that they tired to charge the insurance first but they were told that we have to pay first and then the insurance will eventually refund us the amount.
The problem is that our insurance only covers €1300 each for ER visits, which in our opinion is more than enough for a one hour visit. Here in Italy we don't have private healthcare (basically ER and all hospital expenses are pretty much free) so that leaves us with about $6000/$7000 of debts (bills+medicine expenses minus the €1300 each covered by our insurance).
We are a young couple, not rich at all, and with a baby incoming and his expenses we simply cannot afford such a high amount. Plus, in our opinion, these expenses are way too high for the treatment we received. Additionally, we already paid about $2000 of bills! Looking around we discovered this "high baller"/"high balling" practice that US hospitals tend to use. We were also told that (since we're foreigners, we don't have private healthcare in our country and we simply can't afford these bills) there may be a chance to negotiate these bills. The point is that we do not know what to do and how to do it, being Italians we know almost nothing about US hospitals and legal matters.
So now I'm here asking you fellow redditors: what should we do? Contact the hospital directly or the European credit agency first? What should we say/write? Can any of you assist us with this problem? Even in private. On behalf of my family I'm grateful for any help I may get here. Sorry for my English, I know it's not perfect. Thank you.
TL;DR Italians traveling in US had to use an ER, now we're buried with bills that our travel insurance won't cover entirely. Been told that (since we're foreigners, we don't have private healthcare in our country and we simply can't afford these bills) there may be a chance to negotiate these bills but we don't know how to do it.
Submitted July 02, 2017 at 07:07AM by Gorgon72 http://ift.tt/2sfKYck
