Will the hospital kick you out if you can't pay?

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  • #16
    Re: Will the hospital kick you out if you can't pay?

    Please double-check this online...

    But several years ago a Chicago hospital (Ravenswood or that area?) got sued and fined because they refused treatment to an indigent man outside their door -- or something like that.

    To researchers in general, each county has a Bar association, and most of those have a lawyer referral program where you can pay $25 to $35 (or so) and talk to a lawyer about the law.

    Sometimes they can't find you a lawyer because not enough lawyers are available in the area that you seek guidance. But it's a handy reference option nonetheless and something to check out.

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    • #17
      Re: Will the hospital kick you out if you can't pay?

      Originally posted by Juno Styles View Post
      Maybe emergency was not the right choice of words. I'm trying to create a situation where the boy has to take his mother to the hospital and they find out that she has cancer and they need to have a surgery early before it gets worse. The problem comes in when their insurance has recently dropped them and they're behind on their bills.

      Are you able to recommend any type of illness or tests that could have been run that would allow the doctor to discover this?
      How about http://swns.com/violent-street-muggi...fe-281129.html ?

      Man mugged, taken to hospital and given an X ray, where they discover a tumor.

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      • #18
        Re: Will the hospital kick you out if you can't pay?

        Comic Bent can probably fill in the details but I had a boss who went to the hospital for extreme back pain -- she thought she had a slipped disc -- and then it was discovered she was riddled with final stage cancer. She died about a month later.

        As for payment -- even when you do have insurance some ER's ask for money up front.

        I got a call from my guy that he was in the emergency room. At work, he was feeling extreme acid indigestion and his boss insisted he go to the emergency room to make sure it wasn't a heart attack. When I get there, he's in the the little cubicle, in bed, and there's this hospital lady with what's essentially a cash register on wheels running his debit card and giving him a receipt for $200 cash payment "toward his insurance deductible." I couldn't believe it -- she was rolling from bed to bed taking payments from people with insurance.

        (Oh - it was acid indigestion after all.)
        Advice from writer, Kelly Sue DeConnick. "Try this: if you can replace your female character with a sexy lamp and the story still basically works, maybe you need another draft.-

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        • #19
          Re: Will the hospital kick you out if you can't pay?

          Originally posted by Juno Styles View Post
          I have a character who's mother was rushed to the hospital for complications revolving around her having cancer. She needs surgery to have it removed while it's still early. They are way behind on their past medical bills and recently lost their medical insurance.

          How would the hospital typically handle this situation? Throw them out on their as$? Refuse to do surgery unless they can pay? Or work with them somehow?
          Policies and laws vary, but it is certainly believable and realistic if your character is booted after being stabilized. Hospitals are normally only required to provide treatment for immediately life threatening conditions, absent insurance.

          They will admit her again when she needs more costly life saving procedures at the end of her cancer battle... because of their compassion and all.
          www.silvercop.com
          If we don't get the information, and if we don't get the leads, we can't track down the killers.

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          • #20
            Re: Will the hospital kick you out if you can't pay?

            Originally posted by ComicBent View Post
            Juno, it is hard to answer your question. It is all too complicated to explain in a short paragraph. The problem is that cancers within the body do not cause symptoms until they are advanced. An incidental finding is possible on a CT scan, but why is the CT being done? You could use a complaint of abdominal pain and blood in stool. The patient goes to the ER and undergoes CT scan, which shows a possible mass in the colon. The problem here is that the pain (if caused by cancer) is not an early symptom. So what was the reason for the pain? You see the problem? Everything leads to another question.

            A person close to me has melanoma inside his body, which is skin cancer that normally isn't found inside of you. He was rushed to the emergency room quite a few times due to excessive blood in his stool, for fear of bleeding to death. After an extended stay at the hospital trying to uncover why he was bleeding, the conclusion was that he did indeed have melanoma. They said the melanoma he had was in a rare location, but it was detected early due to his blood-thinning medication making him bleed. However, he needed to have surgery fast to get rid of the quick-moving cancer -- or risk allowing it to spread freely through his body.

            That first detected tumor was removed, but he still has traces of the cancer inside him and frequently goes to try and eliminate further spreading. My point is, this may be a rare case but he was detected early with melanoma, and he needed surgery as soon as possible because of the unique location and the swift spreading of the cancerous tumor.

            As for insurance, my experience in life has been that they will take you in and try and heal you with or without insurance, but you WILL be expected to pay all the fees -- and those fees can take your life away, even if the doctors save you. The costs can quickly mount up to hundreds of thousands of dollars, leaving the uninsured in a mess. Some hospitals are pretty good and allow you to make monthly payments, but others are vicious and want it all now, sending collection agencies after you. It's a bitter pill to swallow (pun intended).

            I want to see something a little happier and uplifting so don't write this script

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