If you’re finding this post via a quick search and need the down and dirty fast, here it is: if you need to go to the emergency room but are worried about the bill, do your best to get to a nonprofit hospital or one you know operates as a charity. There are better odds that they have a financial assistance program that will help reduce or eliminate your bill.
If you don’t have a nonprofit hospital in your area, just get to the hospital. Don’t stress about the potential bill right now. Your life is more important than money.
This post originally went live March 27, 2015.
Don’t Have Insurance? Been There. Done That.
I have a confession to make.: As important as I know and preach it is, the husband and I haven’t always had health insurance. Our kids have always been covered, but there have been gaps where we couldn’t seem to get our hands on any for ourselves.
We weren’t married until about a year ago, which complicated matters even worse. I might have coverage, but he wouldn’t be eligible. We’d have an opportunity to get insurance, but it would cost us $1k/month to take advantage of it. Which was way outside of what we could afford.
Things have gotten a little bit better with the Affordable Care Act. But we live in one of the states that didn’t accept Medicaid Expansion. We didn’t have an alternative in place until this past December with the fruition of the Healthy PA plan.
It’s inferior to Medicaid from a consumer standpoint, and the new governor ran on the promise to replace it with Medicaid. We’re covered at this point in time, but with how crazy things have been in our state, I know there’s still tons of people out there that aren’t covered.
UPDATE: PA Governor Wolf kept to his word and enacted Medicaid Expansion since the writing of this post.
Get Financial Aid from the Hospital
Just because you’re not covered doesn’t mean emergencies don’t happen. We had an emergency happen to us at one point when we weren’t covered. A full on ER bill, physician bill, and all those little, overpriced medical supply bills emergency. It was almost devastating.
Until we applied for the hospital system’s Financial Assistance Program. Until 1969, hospitals that operated as non-profits were required to treat people that couldn’t afford care free of charge.
Today, emergency rooms still have to treat you, but they aren’t federally required to waive your bill. Some states, like New York, have high expectations for their hospitals that claim to be non-profits, requiring them to offer financial assistance programs.
Under the ACA, your bill may not be free, but they do have to offer some type of financial assistance program if they operate as a not-for-profit institution.
Our local hospital that operates as a charity has one of these programs. To qualify we had to prove that we were below 200 and some odd percent of the poverty line, provide all of our financial documents, and state why we couldn’t afford the care.
UPDATE: You can qualify for these programs even if you carry health insurance.
Don’t Feel Guilt Over Getting Help Paying Hospital Bills
It’s kind of rough on the ego to become a bonafide charity case, but we were approved for 100% forgiveness of our emergency room bills. Along with all those other bills that get tagged on when you visit the ER. Nothing like a few thousand dollars to teach you some humility.
Let me repeat that: we saved a few thousand dollars. Should we have been insured? Sure. But again, at the $1k/month rate, even if we had been required to pay our bill in full, it only would have been worth a few months of the premium costs.
Even though employer-sponsored health plans aren’t the only way to get covered anymore, we’re still working tirelessly to better our careers so that we can enjoy benefits like that. We aren’t and never were lazy people. At the time we were working really hard (we still are,) but needed some monetary help to get out of a bad situation that threatened the health of our household.
We’re lucky nothing else happened. Truly lucky. Your best bet is to get to find a way to get covered. But if you can’t, you should still go to the ER when you need to. Don’t let the emergency room bills scare you away.
Because life itself is more important than money, and if you have a nonprofit hospital in your area, they may just have a financial assistance program that rescues you from drowning in hundreds, thousands, or even tens of thousands of dollars of medical-related debt.
This is great information and I’m so glad it all worked out for you guys. Question ~ How do you know if a hospital is non-profit?
Ours is pretty openly a charity. That doesn’t mean it’s not surrounded by controversy with recent insurance battles. Do they accept charitable donations as a 501c? It should be pretty easy to figure out. Worst case scenario, call up and check. But I’d recommend knowing long before an emergency crops up for the uninsured. And keeping in mind that not all states require the financial assistance programs, so check to see if the nonprofit near you does indeed offer one.
Ugh. I’ve been through this battle before. However, even with my health insurance, I’ve STILL been eligible for financial assistance programs based on my actual income. It’s wild to me how this whole system works!
Thanks for linking up with us this week!
Um, that’s awesome news. Not that your health insurance left you hanging, but that you were eligible with it. I’ll have to update the post. And thank you!
Great post Femme! I have insurance and even still I try to avoid going to the ER as much as possible. I’ve been sick the last few days and I’m really wishing I had gone to the doctor on Friday instead of waiting. Now it’s the weekend and I’m really, really much sicker. Now I have to go to the ER, or wait until tomorrow and probably miss another day of work…
Oh, man, I hope you’re feeling better, Kayla!
I’ve actually been looking into Healthcare Ministries lately, the only thing in my way is that I haven’t been a regular member of a church in like 7 years. They’re far more affordable and I prefer everything about the set up – from my money actually going to help people vs administrative fees and the way my own claims would go. I tried going through the Affordable Care Act but it was still way too much, I didn’t qualify for any help despite only making a little over $30,000 a year, which isn’t even guaranteed since I work contract by contract again.
I have no idea what that is. Ha. We qualify for some subsidies but that’s because we have kids. The rates are still stupid high for our income, but smaller than the penalty. I hope you’re able to find something because I know how scary it is to go without. Crossing my fingers for you!
Thanks so much for sharing this post. I’m sure most people have no idea that these sort of programs are available.
No problem! That’s one of my major aims. We really had to dig for this one… they sure as heck don’t advertise it or tell you about it when it’s time to pay your bill.
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