Literally, sick to my stomach about my daughter’s situation.
My son-in-law had a medical emergency last fall that involved him losing his job, being in the hospital for several days, and having intensive treatment for several weeks. He also has follow up visits every month.
The kids barely had Kaiser for a few months and hadn’t even picked a doctor yet or received their cards. Or whatever Kaiser does. The bills have been coming in for many months and she set up payment plans for all, ambulance, outpatient, inpatient services, etc. (Even if you make $50 payments a month it can add up when you have 5 or 6 of those to make!) I helped her budget everything and she has faithfully made the payments for a few months.
Lo and behold, she got a letter today from a collections agency that she is in default to Kaiser. No prior threat from Kaiser that they were going to do this, in fact now they will barely speak to her because they say they no longer are in control of her account. But apparently their policy is that, yes, you can make payments, but it must be paid up in 5 freaking months. So they set up a payment plan of $150 per month thinking that will get over $4,000 paid off in 5 months. Really?
She has received monthly statements, none of which indicated she owed anything other than $150 per month or that she was in arrears. And, on top of all of that, none of the numbers from the bills, to the collections, to what was said on the phone, add up. Understand, the SIL abruptly lost his job due to his medical condition and their income is paltry.
Silly me, I thought the ACA had laws in place to prevent people from going into bankruptcy over medical expenses. That if you made your monthly payments you were OK. Wrong!
Now, today, for some money she still owes, Kaiser verified they were eligible for small monthly payments for 3 years. I guess they have a program where, if you have a low enough income, you can be approved for small, long term payments. Why was this not offered to her several months ago? Who the hell knows!
She called Garamendi’s office (per my suggestion) and they sent her to a state agency dealing with these issues. They read the law to her, suggested she file a grievance with the CEO of Kaiser, then get back to them in 6 months if the situation isn’t resolved. I am hoping that means that this agency, while trying to remain neutral, sees some fishiness on the part of Kaiser that they can help with in the future? The staff referred to contacting Kaiser as step 1 and calling this agency back as step 2.
This is the first time in her life her credit rating has dropped below 700, so she has been as financially responsible in the past as she could be. Yet these medical bills will destroy all of that and hurt her for many years to come. I know many of you have suffered from financial disasters and low income. And I sympathize completely for how hard it is to claw your way out of that.
Is my daughter’s case unusual? What are your stories? And is there any way to win a mess like this?
Thanks for allowing me to rant.