Originally Posted by Mathsr
The hospital is probably going to accept the $20,000 as payment, claim the balance of $69,000 as noncollectable, all the while making probably close to $15,000, and knowing the guy got bit by a rat snake. grin


+1. My experience, +35 years in healthcare. So the guy ends up having to pay $5400. The hospital writes the noncollectable as a loss. The hospital still made a some. If a hospital makes too much profit it loses its nonprofit status so they use all kinds of ways to fudge the actual figures. I think it was Ronald Reagan in the eighties who passed a law forcing hospitals to treat anyone who came into an emergency room, but he did not account for anyway of paying for it, so a lot of unreimbursed healthcare is related to emergency rooms which is passed on to other patients with insurance.