What would you do if you had a huge medical bill that you had to pay but couldn’t afford to pay? Would you try to find a way to get out of paying the bill, or would you simply accept your fate and pay the bill?

In today’s story, a couple has a huge medical bill, and they almost accept that they’ll have to pay it. Then a comment the rude account rep makes changes everything!

Let’s see how the story plays out.

Don’t like the amount offered? Then take nothing and like it!

My wife (f31) and I (m33), like many other Americans, are beleaguered under the for profit medical insurance industry.

My wife gave birth to our precious first daughter in September of 2021 and we have been dealing with taking the little one to the doctor (already had an emergency room visit yay!) and what not when we receive the bill for the L&D at the hospital from September.

We were charged over 20,000 dollars for a straight forward, regular delivery with an epidural.

Even though I do not like our insurance, it covered a huge chunk of the amount due.

But it didn’t cover everything!

That being said, there was still over 2,000 left.

Well, with my wife being a teacher and myself being a state government worker, our income isn’t exactly low, but neither is it high either.

2,000 out of pocket would put us into major debt.

The hospital was very patient (at first) with trying to get paid until recently.

He successfully negotiated the bill down, but not as low as he had hoped.

I had been in communication with the hospital trying to negotiate the cheapest amount possible to clear the account.

The hospital still wanted close to half of the amount in order to close the account out.

I countered with what we could legitimately offer and consigning myself to the addition of yet another auto debit coming out of our bank account because they weren’t going to accept my offer…

Tut then the account representative kept interrupting me during the phone call and was being outrageously rude.

The account rep actually gave him really helpful advice!

I understand that we have a debt, and I’m not trying to welch on it, but don’t treat me like dirt because of this poor system that was charging my wife over 50 dollars for one frigging Advil amongst other insanity.

The account representative continued being nasty during the call and derisively suggested maybe I should go to the financial assistance program…so I did.

I called the customer service line for that said program and in less than 10 minutes I was getting confirmation of the entire amount being forgiven.

Apparently when you make less than 300% (my apologies. I previously had a multiplication sign when I meant percentage) the federal poverty rate and you go to most non profit hospitals, they will forgive the amount.

This is a great piece of advice!

The arrogant account representative tried to shame me into paying an outrageous price for services rendered and didn’t want to accept my offer of paying some of the bill…so now they get absolutely nothing.

Don’t accept the medical bills that you receive.

Fight tooth and nail to get it down, and if you’re lucky like my wife and I, you just may get it all cleared away!

I’m so glad the account rep, in all her rudeness, said something that was actually helpful! She is the heroine of the story even though she started out as the villain.

Let’s see how Reddit reacted to this story.

This person thinks it’s clear that the hospital was trying to rip them off.

This really is good advice.

A non-American is surprised that they thought $2000 was a lot of money.

It doesn’t hurt to try!

Here’s the perspective of a non-American.

This story is a must read for anyone with medical bills.

If you liked that post, check out this post about a woman who tracked down a contractor who tried to vanish without a trace.