America’s top hospitals hound patients with predatory billing

I had an operation a few years back and gave up trying to coordinate payment with the Hospital and my insurance. I received so many different bills from so many different departments, often times for amounts like 30.55 or 18.75, small enough that I never understood what they were even for.

I call the hospital and asked if I could just get an itemized list for everything in one place. They refused, saying that's not how it worked, each department was like its own company, so they couldn't combine them into a single bill.

Ultimately I just refused to pay anything. I saved each letter they sent me but never paid another dollar to them. After about ~6 months, they sent all of my charges to my state's department of revenue, which sent me a single itemized bill that I could easily review and digest. I paid it the day I got it.