Frank, I'm really sorry to see you in that situation. I don't Pray, but I do fervently Wish and Hope to see you get relief from your problem. Good Luck, Hal
A post from the breast cancer forum, from a Canadian member. "This is me having an anxiety attack, but I"m pissed off. At the Canadian medical system. Which we crow about as if it's the gold standard for care. And while care - when you can get it - might be good, there are many, many people waiting....waiting....waiting and living shit quality of life because this system is slow, unresponsive and too top heavy! I showed up in the local emergency room March 27th with what can only be described as hemorrhage after no periods since 2017. It was unstoppable and extreme. The attending doc told me to NOT FOOL AROUND with this. This is urgent! Bleeding in postmeno women is considered uterine cancer until proven otherwise, the doc said. You are a breast cancer patient! DO NOT IGNORE THIS! So I make all the appropriate calls and have been waiting since then for appt calls. Today the gyno called me. I get to see him May 4. Bleed March 27 and your quick, fast, urgent gyno appointment is over a month away? So much for this being an urgent emergency. This is NOT COOL and I am underwhelmed with our system"
@Frank Sanoica every dialysis patient I know about has been on Medicare, regardless of their age. One young lady I worked with briefly was on Medicare and peritoneal dialysis. She was even still working, although had to quit due to the inability to withstand the rigors of working 8-hour days on her feet. I think she was in her mid-20s. I assume you are still on peritoneal dialysis, not hemodialysis, since your nephrologist thinks you may be gaining kidney function.
@Don Alaska I am on Medicare. We do not qualify for Medicaid. I AM on hemodialysis, not peritoneal (thank goodness!), though the peritoneal approach can be adapted to process at home, but far more frequently. I have currently been reduced from 3 treatments a week to two, have been on hemodialysis now for 13 months. We have Humana Healthcare, to which we have assigned our Medicare deductions monthly. Humana has paid all but about $100 per dialysis treatment to the dialysis clinic. We have not paid a single one of the "out of pocket" billings, having been told the dialysis company makes exceptions to waive such payment; we have been wrangling over this with them for six months, during which time the phone calls requesting payment have not ceased. Frank
There is a couple of choices 1 look into DR.Joel Wallach who seem to get people off dialysis treatments with nourishment. If not bankruptcy to get rid of all your bills. Lastly is to tell them to go to h*ll and through you in jail where they will give you medical care.
Since you have no children to inherit your house, @Frank Sanoica , it is possible that you could do the same things as our friend in Idaho did when her husband had a stroke, then Alzheimer’s, and had to be placed in the nursing home. The county paid for the nursing home expenses, but took their house as security, with the stipulation that the wife could live there until both of them had died, and that the property could be rescued anytime, by paying back the mortgage to the country. It seems like , since you said you are below poverty level, that you should qualify for medicaid, even if you didn’t before, because of the dialysis expenses, so you might want to bring it up with SS and try applying for medicaid again. I know of a person who makes too much SS to qualify for medicaid, but they gave him some kind of a special authorization when he had to be treated for colon cancer. I also agree with @Martin Alonzo about possibly looking into changing your way of eating. There are several doctors with youtube videos about diet changes affecting most diseases, and sometimes reversing them. I am making diet changes in the hopes of helping my heart, and I am feeling better, and have not had an a-fib or tachycardia event for a while now, so I have hopes that it is working. You might check out Dr. John McDougall’s books, as well.
@Frank Sanoica I was lucky to have a great SS insurance expert and he recommended I pay more per month to get a secondary that had only a yearly deductible and then picked up what SS didn't so I had no more out of pocket. One of my friends opted to save on her monthly plan cost of the secondary and take her chances with a small percentage out-of-pocket after the deductible was met, hoping like you did that the provider would waiver this amount. She is in the same boat you are with this small percentage out-of-pocket building into an amount she cannot pay. While the percentage is small the amount may not be. The thing is these providers can write that amount off and do it for many, but there is no rule that forces them to. You might talk to billing and ask why they haven't written it off and what their rules are to qualify. If they still insist you pay, then negotiate with them for a smaller amount. I would recommend about 25% of the total. Get it all in writing. If they are uncooperative then tell them to turn it over to collections where they will be lucky to get 10% of the amount. Probably about 5%. There are laws about how and when collectors can harass you and you also if you can show them that you tried to settle this debt and the provider refused, then you can get court orders to prevent them from contacting you. I wouldn't pay an attorney even if they could help because their fees will be more than what you can negotiate. It is throwing good money after bad. Be your own advocate and stand firm. Chances are if you negotiate with them and never file for bankruptcy or let the state get a lien on your property, they will take what money you offer if it is over what the collectors offer. Collectors buy total amounts from these places and hope to collect on a small percentage of people that value their credit. The thing is when you and your wife die, they will get nothing unless they get a judgment against you and in most states if you are actively seeking to settle the debt, such an action will be thrown out of court. I paid off all my debt because of medical before age 66 by remortgaging my place. I talked the provider into giving me a 20% discount. Best I could do since I valued my credit at that time. I liked that option better than giving the state a lien. I will have to live to be 100 to pay it off, but I don't care anymore. With land taxes, we don't really fully own our property anyway. Sure sorry, you have to deal with medical billing. Stress is unhealthy and sadly medicare could care less about stressing us.
The rules may have changed in the past few decades, but when I was the EMS Director for a volunteer ambulance service, we would forgive the out-of-pocket expenses rather than going after someone for the 20% that Medicare didn't pay. However, during a Medicare audit, they told us that if we didn't bill them for the out-of-pocket expense, then our actual rate would be reduced by that much. In other words, to use round figures, if our charge was $1,000 and Medicare paid 80% of that ($800), and we did not bill the patient for the additional $200, then our actual charge, as far as Medicare was concerned, was $800 and they would only pay 80% of $800 rather than 80% of $1,000. There was an easy fix for that, from our side. We would bill them for the out-of-pocket but never follow up on it.