if you do not pay your hospital bills for labor and delivery, can they take the deed to your home, car, rv, or boat title? my fiance says thats what happens.
i did not have insurance on myself but my babys bills were covered by medical card. so mine are still unpaid six months later.
can they confiscate my property? i have a boat and a car both titles in only my name
omg america is so messed up. so glad i am in the UK and have the national health service.
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March 30, 2009 at 07:00 pm
You can be sent to collections, but the hospital itself cannot take your car or house or anything else. They will hand that duty off to somebody else, the collection agency.
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March 30, 2009 at 07:07 pm
I haven't paid mine! LOL
I TRIED TO. I called to setup a payment plan and they said I was unable to because it'd already gone to collections. Yet the KEPT sending me bills two or three months after this until Max Revenue Services started calling. I'm fed up with the crap…
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March 30, 2009 at 07:14 pm
no they can't
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March 30, 2009 at 07:51 pm
omg america is so messed up. so glad i am in the UK and have the national health service.
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March 30, 2009 at 08:21 pm
I'm not quite sure what happens. But I know couples who take years to pay for their baby's birth. You call the hospital and set up a payment plan. Pay what you can per month — be it $25 or $100 or more. I called them this week to set up payment plans for lab work. They'll work with you! As long as you make an effort.
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March 30, 2009 at 08:29 pm
They would have to sue you in court and get a judgement against you. Try and make payment arrangements, something you can afford.
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March 30, 2009 at 08:35 pm
Hon, you have to pay your bills. Welcome to the real world.
Depending on how much the bill is they can sue you.
It's hard for them to take your property. It all depends on what state you are in. This is a legal matter so you might want to ask on a different board.
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March 30, 2009 at 09:17 pm
i haven't heard anything like that.. u better get on that.. I know they froze my baby's father's step mothers account cause she didn't pay on something.. I have 3 bills that i have to pay on… and they aren't much.. but they have already went to a collection agency.. so IMMA GET ON THAT LIKE NOW.. like the highest one I owe is like 228.68 now after the baby is born thats a whole nother story..
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36 weeks with 1st -
March 30, 2009 at 09:39 pm
No i had insurance but still had a lot to pay since my son was in the NICU for a while and they havent taken anything from me just send me collection notices.
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March 30, 2009 at 10:25 pm
no, as long as you are paying for your car, rv, boat, etc…then they wont repo it. pretty much the only thing that will happen is they will report you to the debt collectors and your credit will be horrible =[. if i were you i would sell the rv and boat and pay for the hospital visit…you will be using both alot less anyways with the new baby. and good credit is a must with this economy!
congrats on the baby
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March 30, 2009 at 11:01 pm
I know that around here if you are making a good effort, usually like $50-$100 and keep in contact with there accounting or billing department they will not send you to collections. I have never heard of them taking anything from people, I have however been told of them asking people to sell things to settle the bill as soon as possible. But just make arrangements with them and make it all in good effort and they will not ruin your credit or turn you in to collections. But if it does run into a situation of you avoiding them and not paying or talking to them they will sue you and you could be made to sell your stuff by the courts. Also, I have no maternity coverage and make $100 to much every month to get medicaid and I called the doctors office and teh hospital and made arrangments a head of time and they are willing to cut the cost of the whole thing by 40% at the doctors and 40% at the hospital so I really recommend that if someone knows they are going to have out of pocket expense they need to call and make arrangments ahead of time to not only save money but also thier credit rating as well. Never wait any amount of time to call and make arrangments expecially 6 months because they do not like to work with you if you make them wait to long to get some kind of feed back from you.
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March 30, 2009 at 11:38 pm
No, they cannot do that.
Why didn't you get on medicaid while you were pregnant? If you had no insurance and little or no income, you qualified. Every state has a pregnancy program so women can get prenatal care.
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March 31, 2009 at 12:20 am
No they cannot confiscate your property (I am assuming you are in the US) But if you have a boat, sell it so you can pay your dang bills! Why deal with the stress of collections calls all the time if you can solve it by selling a boat??? Anyway, if you have a job they CAN garnish your wages if they take you to court.
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March 31, 2009 at 01:08 am
Im with you star, thank god I live it Canada where my delivery is free due to Public Health Care! I love Canada!!!!
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March 31, 2009 at 01:18 am
Medical bills is like credit card bills. They can only send you to collections. My dad has 3 repo'd cars under his name and he never paid but all the keep sending is letters wanting only 20% of the balance. If you let a few years pass, they will eventually cut the amount to more than half. If they have already messed up your credit, you might as well wait until they do that. What's the point of paying if they have already done damage to your credit.
I'm pregnant and will have my baby July 27th, however, I am paying my annual deductible of $1500 so that my labor and delivery will be covered 100%. I heard though that once the baby is out, A WHOLE NEW BILL TAKES PLACE and I need to find out if my insurance will cover that. Hospitals are VERY tricky and charge you for EVERYTHING!!! No wonder they make so much but yet they still go under (like UTMB).
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March 31, 2009 at 01:35 am
Hi i felt compelled to answer this because i had a neighbor go through the very same thing and it was tough on her. With her second daughter her insurance company screwed up and did not put her daughter, so ever since her daughter was born she has been fighting it. After her daughter turned two, they put a hold all her bank accounts, her home, her cars and this was about a year ago and they are still fighting it, they never did get the money released from there bank accounts..so Yes it can happen.
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I also forgot to mention that while i was pregnant with my son i got a program called PCAP it pays for ALL medical bills and covers the baby i believe for 6 months then you would have to get medicaid but with that you can also get W.I.C when buys the babys formula and cheese, cereal, milk. etc while you are pregnant. I live in N.Y so i'm not sure how it works where you live but every state has one. -
March 31, 2009 at 01:42 am
This happened to my husband. Your medical bills, if gone unpaid will be turned over to a collections agency. What happened to him was, they will sent him something in the mail for a settlement, which is a percentage of what he owed. He still hasn't paid it and its been almost 5 years. I DON'T recommend this.
When we wanted to get a refinance for our mortgage and try to get a better rate, guess what… those unpaid bills showed their ugly heads and really dragged his credit down. We weren't eligible for the better rate. It can ruin your credit.
I don't know if the collections agency can seize your property, BUT I do believe you can be sued and have to sell it on your own to come up with the funds.
My advice is to try to work something out on your own, a settlement, or a payment plan. Try your best not to ruin your credit… good credit is very important these days and will prove invaluable in the future as the economy gets worse (and it will get worse before its better).
Additionally… my advice is based on my husband's experience and you need to understand that it may be very different. His bills were only like $1200. I just had a baby myself… and the bills were like $30,000… totally different story. Start doing research.
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March 31, 2009 at 02:31 am
They can refer your account to a collection agency who at the last resort can. However, only if you have things that are paid off that could be sold to pay those bills. You need to contact the billing department of the hospital and tell them you would like to set up a payment plan. They will work with you. Also, so long as you pay them SOMETHING… whether it be 20 bucks or 200 bucks, they can't to crap to you because you are paying them something. Now, if you contact the billing department to set up a billing plan they will send you a contract to sign saying you agree to pay this much on this day for this many months. If you break that contract you are right back where you started.
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Been there done that -
March 31, 2009 at 03:17 am
I had to go to the hospital because I was having a miscarriage and they sent me home but had to go back again to have a d & c. So two trips to the ER with all the expenses it was outrageous. I was in between jobs at the time and had no insurance. I told them that when I went in and they told me I could apply for assistance. I got turned down for assistance therefore all those bills have gone unpaid. They didn't take anything from me except my excellent credit….which is now ruined. It was a really screwed up situation. I don't think they can take anything from you but it may be different where you live. Just be prepared for your credit to be shot.
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