Help! Urgent care made a mistake and now I'm saddled with $2k-3k in medical bills.

[aphotic28]

Any assistance/advice appreciated. Went to an urgent care on October 9th because of a panic attack, first time ever having one so severe so thought I might be having cardiac issues, they administered a faulty EKG which showed I had an irregular heartbeat and no p-wave and so called an ambulance. Asked if I could go with the person who brought me to the urgent care to the hospital, which was about five minutes away. They answered in the negative and said I had to go leave with the ambulance. The hospitals EKG showed sinus arrhythmia and upbeat tempo, nothing life threatening and the blood test and chest x-ray were also clear. Now I have about 2 to 3 thousand dollars in medical expenses all due to one faulty EKG! Is there anyway to mitigate the costs given the circumstances? Any possible governmental assistance?


Thank you for your time.

 

[Yagents]

If insured, use your insurance network discounted rates.
If not, offer them 25% above medicare rates, and start negotiating from there.
Glad it wasn't a valid EKG reading, otherwise, you might just have been thankful for their advice. How would you have felt about the bills then?

 

[J.R.]

Sorry for the inconvenience. You might be able to reach out to some local companies in Texas to help negotiate the bill for you. My personal recommendation is that you take the bill and multiply by .10 and work out a deal to make payments.

I have no idea what a faulty EKG means, but from your description, it sounds like it might be a faulty EKG. I'm not a doctor, so who knows. As a backup for potential future issues it might help to take Uber.

 

[leevena]

Since you did not mention any insurance coverage, I am assuming there is none. Based on what you have outlined above, if this were me I would first attempt to have the urgent care assume the additional cost of the services incurred at the hospital. You may not even need an attorney. As for the expenses incurred at the urgent care site, those should be your responsibility.

By the way, the cost of $2,000-3,000 does appear to be on the low side.

 

[aphotic28]

Since you did not mention any insurance coverage, I am assuming there is none. Based on what you have outlined above, if this were me I would first attempt to have the urgent care assume the additional cost of the services incurred at the hospital. You may not even need an attorney. As for the expenses incurred at the urgent care site, those should be your responsibility.

By the way, the cost of $2,000-3,000 does appear to be on the low side.

Do have insurance, how do you suggest I get the urgent care to assume the costs incurred? Well 2-3k is not low for me, don't make very much money.

 

[leevena]

May not have been clear. I meant that the total charges appear to be low for the services provided. I would contact the urgent care center, tell them what you want to do and who should you talk to.

 

[yorkriver1]

Run this through Google: (name of hospital where you went to the ER) patient financial assistance. There may be an income based sliding scale, all the way to zero owed, depending on income. I have found the hospitals in our area say under 200% of federal poverty level for household size. (who is on your tax return) You will have to pro-actively request this, and some have a form to fill out available to download from their website. Even if over their 100% wipe out the debt income, many have a sliding scale.
Not sure how prevalent this is around the country, but one more possible bit of help.

 

[scagnt83]

You didn't HAVE to take an ambulance. They are not the police, they cannot force you to do something.

Urgent care places often overreact to cover their ass legally, and are very quick to send people to the hospital.

Urgent Care sent my daughter to the ER once over a UTI... Doctors in the ER said we never should have been there! I filed a formal complaint about the Doctor and end up receiving a formal apology from both him and the medical practice.