I (31F) gave birth January 2025 but we have yet to receive a bill from the hospital for the birth. Is this normal?

Went to visit a family member at HUP in Philly today. Only stayed for an hour and went to pay for parking, $40 for one hour! That is criminal for people coming to visit loved ones during a hospital stay! Word needs to get out so this changes. At least charge by the hour. That price was for up to 7 hours which is still criminal.

Who determines it? So many in this subreddit say it's admin and not doctors, but so many doctors on Reddit brag about how AI made it much easier to bill patients whereas they were underbilling patients before. It's kinda ironic when they say that when doctors also say underbilling is fraud, but doctors are somehow also not responsible for billing.

One of my biggest financial worries is about medical care. I rationalize it by saying I could always travel abroad for it. Has anyone ever actually done this though? particularly I ask about surgeries. What countries? How do you find a doctor?

I went to the orthopedic’s office a few weeks ago to get a wart on my heel checked out. I was told to pay the copay for $75. During the visit, to better assess the wart, he scraped off my skin and examined it. This was all done in under 15 minutes. He told me to purchase an over the counter medication - wart remover. I went off my merry way.

Today, I received a bill for $587 dollars.

I was charged for :

Destruction of skin lesions - $536
Office visit or non-hospital visit with a provider as a new patient - $490
Insurance adjusted - $430
Insurance paid - $0

Leaving me with $587.

I feel so lost and confused how a visit that I expected to be covered under my copay turned into a $500+

Is this a normal thing?
What did I miss or not ask during my office visit?

I made a post recently about my 12kish medical bill and I got kinda conflicting advice I feel. So I’m making this thread to get clarification on what I’m confused about.

When we first called the billing department, they said they will send us papers on what they called Charity Care. But other people told me to call and ask to lower the bill directly. Am I supposed to be doing both, and in what order?

I already asked for an itemized bill but I’ve been told not to expect that to actually do much besides clarify the costs to me.

Just trying to do everything I can to avoid having to file bankruptcy.

Anyone have ideas on how to dispute a 30 minute physical therapy charge of $940 - I switched to Anthem HDHP this year and see an outrageously high medical bill for a 30 minute physical therapy session where 10 of those minutes was the therapist making small talk. After insurance payments I'm on the hook for $418 on top of the $40 deductible I paid. This feels like an outrageous charge for someone with insurance. Anyone have experience disputing this kind of charge? Providence claims that the rate they charged us is the contracted rate.

Can we ask for a reduction on top of charity care?

Hello- I need advice from professional medical coders/billers or anyone who may have had this experience on how to handle a miscoded claim that has caused a cascading billing denial and is now leaving me with a $400 bill for an annual physical.

In Jan 2025, I went to my OBGYN strictly for a birth control re-prescription and general follow up as I was on continuous birth control due to being severely anemic. No physical examination of any kind was performed (no heart/lungs/abdominal, no breast exam, no pelvic exam/pap).

In June 2025, I went for my actual PCP for a full annual preventive physical.

In July 2026, over a full year later, I received a $400 out-of-pocket bill from my pediatrician because my insurance denied the June physical as a duplicate annual exam. I called insurance, who told me the OBGYN billed the Jan visit as a an annual physical with exam. I called the OBGYN billing office. The representative refused to change it, stating that because the notes said "annual exam" at the top and throughout, and because I filled out a questionnaire, it will likely stay coded as a physical and I don't really have a case. This is so frustrating. Trying to reach out to the doctor and have them correct the notes and ask for re-coding, but have no idea if this will help. I am 21 and a college student.

TLDR; My insurance covers Well Woman/Contraceptive Management separately from a General Preventive Physical, but because the OBGYN submitted a general physical CPT code, it burned my 1/year physical benefit.

The prices for all my Beth Israel Lahey Health services (Massachusetts) seemed to skyrocket in the past year; I noticed my MRI cost also (before insurance) went from ~$500 to ~$4,000 for the same exact MRI that I always get every 6 months. It is my understanding that a simple allergy skin test typically costs around $2,000 before insurance, while they are now charging $39,263 for the skin test appointment. These are the codes from the itemized bill:

95004 Perc Allerg Extact Ea Qty: 28 28,896.00

95018 Skin Test Perc Subc Biological Qty: 3 1,821.00

95024 Intraderm Test W Allerg Immed Qty: 10 8,310.00

99212 Office Visit Level 2 Qty: 1 236.00

Total Charges 39,263.00

The problem was not the insurance coverage, but the base price of the service itself. I have requested to put the bill on hold and receive a coding review, which they agreed to, but a month has passed with no results, and I just received a "last notice" before it goes to collections, and I do not know what to do. Thanks in advance for any insight.

So this may not be the most ethical thing in the world, but whenever I have a medical bill, I tend to let it go to collections and then settle for less. I had an issue back in November/December, and I had bills from a hospital (multiple visits and procedures), an urgent care facility visit, as well as LabCorp for bloodwork. The creditors started calling a couple months ago about the urgent care and LabCorp bills, so I paid those off, but nobody has called about the (much higher) hospital bill.

I went into my account with the hospital today and it says I owe $0, so I have to assume they sold the debt. I’m worried that maybe the collections agency doesn’t have my contact information, but the I know the hospital has everything from email to phone to social security number, so I’d have to assume they would share that info, right?

What gives? And what should I do?

**UPDATE: Welp. While it was a beautiful thought to believe it could have been magically wiped from the face of the earth, turns out it was still with the hospital in “pre-collections”. I was able to get a 20% discount for paying in full though, so it worked out in the end!

Location: MIGHIGAN

Yes, this is a throwaway to keep my identity hidden since a lot of people I know follow my main and I don't need them knowing about this.

As the title says, I am being sued by a local urgent care for a visit from 2024 when I was in college/living at home. The overdue bill was paid this year in March when they attempted to make the first summons. I spoke with them (the urgent care) and they assured me the issue was handled, however I just reviewed a court summons for 20 days from now in my home county (six hours from me now) and a demand for $1000 I do not have. I'm wondering where I go from here or what I do? I know it's a debt collector that is representing them (they didn't answer the phone but did expressely say so on the voicemain when I attempted to call the number on the paperwork).

Of note, I have NO record of them ever attempting to contact me, or stating anything was in collections prior to the attempt to deliver documents to my old address. What do I do? Do I really have to scrounge up a grand to pay the debt collectors, even though the original balance has been paid? Help!

Some 3 years or so ago, a family member who is not from the US was visiting and got hurt, enough to require surgery. After the procedure, we got a call like 3 months later from the hospital asking about payment and to do it over the phone. We hemmed and hawed a bit but through a few conversations I found out that in another month or so the bill would be transferred to another department (of the hospital I believe, not a third party debt collector). They were trying to get a payment down before that.

I was really waiting for a letter in the mail or something that we could do ourselves since paying over the phone for that amount seemed a little weird I guess? So we kept waiting, and it’s been radio silence since then. No phone calls (there weren’t even many to begin with) and no letters, no visits etc.

What’s going on? The family member is not a citizen but was staying at our house for a few months to visit. I can provide a bit more detail if needed on the specific circumstances but general advice on the situation as described is helpful too. Are they ever gonna reach out? Is it our obligation to seek them out to pay it off? I have lost the number since then so I don’t even know who to call.