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Comment by janesvilleseo | Hacker News Reader

I’m sure going to get downvoted for this but.... I just don’t pay my medical bills I pay my dentist and eye doctor bills since those are different. But I just let my insurance pay their part and I walk away from the rest. I haven’t had anything catastrophic yet. But have and do have bills in the 1,000s.

My credit score is great in the 740+ range.

I know big stuff they could take me to court or put a lien on my property. They haven’t yet.

It’s my little protest against all of this crazy healthcare prices and system we have here in the US.

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I tried to make payments to the hospital on a few thousand in bills, fell behind, and eventually got sued. I would not offer this as advice to anybody.

If somebody from the hospital had told me _before_ I got served that I could get 85% of my bill written off just by submitting some paystubs, I would have appreciated it. If you're in a similar spot, call and ask about patient financial assistance or similar programs.

I do the same, but it's not a protest, it's because I literally can't pay. They have sued me though, and they won, but nothing happened after the lawsuit closed. This country is headed towards mad max territory.Yippee ki yay boys, I'll see you on the road.

You are far from alone. And people wonder why hospitals try to squeeze patients so much. Medical debt is extremely hard to recover.

Do you go to a different dentist and eye doctor each time?

Also, if you had to go to an emergency room, would you give them fake personal info so they can't send you bills?

You can be several thousands in arrears (and even in collections) to the hospital and still visit the ER, see your doctor, get a CT scan etc. I know because I've been doing it since 2017, but I have insurance and the people I see probably just assume the bills are getting paid if I keep coming back. Care providers and admitting people don't generally access your financial/billing information.

I pay my dentist and eye doctors. Those are treated differently. There really isn’t eye insurance and dentists usually have normalish prices compared to other doctors.

I mean I can ask my dentist how much it’s going to be and he can actually give me a price before my procedure.

But as I stated above the insurance pays their portion so it’s not like nothing is being paid. Just not the 900% markup.

I don’t recommend doing this. I’m sure it will bite me eventually but it’s been 10+ years. And yes I haven’t had any major or catastrophic medical event in my life. So the bills haven’t been in the +10k range. I’m pretty sure once it gets there they will put a lien or sue me.

I go the same facility every time. I haven’t been denied. My family hasn’t been denied.

If I did go to an ER for something serious I would give them my real name and info. I do have insurance and it will pay a portion. Depending on the size I might pay it. I might not. Just haven’t had anything really large.

I think one of the reasons why most dentists can give you a straight up price on the spot is because they own the practice which means they are the decision maker when it comes to prices. Plus with a dentist, there's a pretty decent chance you're not dealing with insurance companies. With a hospital you're dealing with a million layers of abstraction at both the hospital and insurance company level.

I'm definitely not defending hospitals and most doctor's offices but I think that plays some part in it. There's also a decent amount of dental competition when it comes to routine work such as cleanings, so prices wind up staying somewhat reasonable where as with a hospital there's no competition really due to how insurance works.

I always use dental insurance and always get a price before a procedure, and I have six kids.

Say, that's an interesting idea.

Develop a good-quality fake identity purely for skipping on medical bills.

Just to add an alternative that I've considered (now being a kind of programmer emeritus) is to go into a full-tilt asset hiding mode. There's just too many ways to lose your hoard of cash.

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