That is totally disgusting! Why do you people allow this, dont you have a representative in government to speak for you.. Health care should never be run by For Profit companies..

I agree that this is reprehensible practice, but it all goes back to reading before signing. The other thing is, without profit, what the point of doing business? Altruism is fine, but it doesn't attract talent.

Vonny02
It is a horrible thing to be sick in the US and I was even told by my House of Delegate, Rich Boucher, that if I went to the ER they would write it off as a charity case. Can you imagine being sick with insurance in the beginning, having 2 surgeries that arent completely covered along with doc visits, and then loosing your insurance. Being told by the govt. that you have to wait 2-3 years to get Social Security disability with a 0 income and then when you finally get SS disability if you arent considered in a poverty level they deny you health insurance for over 2 years. So you have one option, go to the ER if you have a crisis situation, and then deal with this?????????

if you are in need of emergency treatment (in the US) all you have to do is go to a county hospital and they have to treat you.

If you are in an accident and are brought to a for-profit hospital, they have to treat and stabilize you enough for transport to a county hospital, this includes emergency surgery.

If you take profit out of medicine, who will front millions of dollars to develop new drugs or devices? Who will front the money for medical research into new treatments and surgical techniques?

"If it was up to the government to cure polio you'd have the best iron lung in the world, but not a polio vaccine. ..." - Dr. Samuel Broder, Natl Inst Health

Maybe I need to clarify my post: this billing practice occurs at non-profit hospitals such as county hospitals and at not-for-profit clinics also. They may be required to treat you, but there is nothing to stop them from selling your account to another, for-profit company when you do not pay promptly.
This second company then is subject to the same rules as, say, a credit-card company and the collection procedures can wreck your credit if you do not meet their terms.
It's this practice of selling off their slow-payer accounts for cash that is new. There are companies that are now actively soliciting hospitals and clinics for this kind of business, so watch what you sign. If you do not agree in your admission paperwork to let another company "manage" your account, they cannot do it.
I think it was Business Week that broke the story originally, I am not sure.
I posted this because I know a lot of us with CFS use ER's for our care.

I think RicheD is making a good point here and it is his desire to help individuals without the financial means to pay for medical services to be aware of a situation that could occur. I appreciate your post and truely understand your concerns.

My experiences are exactly what RicheD explains unless a hospital writes you off as a charity - you are still responsible for the bill and yes they do turn you into collection agencies regardless of your circumstances. Millions of Americans are without Health insurance. Many of these are in a bankrupt stage because of an emergency situation and treatment recieved that they dont have the means to pay for. And some of these arent disabled. There are elderly people that are forced to keep on working to have health insurance for their conditions. They cannot afford to retire in the US. My mom being one who is 70ty years old.

Certaintly hospitals are a business and that is not the point - all businesses are out for profit making.....but the point is our Govt sits back and lets stuff happen. People with disabilities are in no condition to work, pay for services, and are caught up in the middle of this.

People who are capable of paying for services should but people who are on limited incomes cannot pay. I frankly am not in a position to be concerned about whether or not our govt or its facilities have the finances to support research, new surgery techniques, and or develop new drugs and funding for it. The govt and CDC seem to find money for its funding yet fail to acknowledge the Healthcare crisis in the US.

I apprecite peoples concerns...and also respect their views but on a personal level I am more concerned about making it through the next year without any medical insurance. I was a law-abiding, tax paying, responsible citizen...who paid my medical bills and others when I was well. What about Americans with disability rights? If you are disabled you are not in a position to pay for anyones profits, you are a forgotten individual and the govt could care less.

I think we should consider other peoples feelings and walk in their shoes if we are unable to understand their situations. There are many people on this site who were hard working individuals before this illness and responsible people. I hardly think we are in the bracket of being the ones who encourage taking the profit out of medicine. Thanks for the infor RicheD and the support.

i am on state insurance and i am so glad-even though drs have issues with them-they still take people with state insurance becausw most people in my state are on medicaid. i live in oklahoma adn we are one of the poorest stated in the us. they are doing this trick with us though: it is a weekend and you can't see your dr, or you have an emoergency, either way you end up in the er. well, medicaid covers the er visits but because the er dr belong to some company-outside of the hospital-they charge you for the dr. and as most of you know an er dr is mostly a joke especially if we have to go in for flareups and such. so i had been getting all of these bills for drs in the er and i just overlooked them because i thought medicaid would pay for them, but apparently i am supposed to callmedicaid and work this out. a bad credit score is not the worst thing in the world to me-so they can threaten to garnish my wages (ummmmm, i am sick i don't work) i told them that no i was not going to spend days on the phone with medicaid and the millions of other agencies that i would need tp call-so it's real easy, if they want their money they can jump through mediaid hoops. i keep returning their mail-unopened and write they need to talk to mediaid and here is the phone numbers for providers. and if medicaid doesn't pay them then maybe they should become an employee of the hospital again. they use those that don't pay as a tax writeoff anyway, and they get special grants and loans in order to see patience with no insurance at all-at least that is how it workds in the county hospotal here.
when i was sick with mono i was hopitalized for almost a month and i saw all kinds of drs because the test for epbar came back negative 3 times-so did the test for everything else-so they thought it was lymphomia. needless to say i racked up quite a bill-about $200,000 worth of a bill. at that time i was out of work and every dime i got went to my kids, i had to live with my mom. even when i started back to work again that bill was the last thing on my mind. i had to catch up with my car payment, i had to get new insurance, i had to get a house, i had to get speical eqipment for jeff-this was the time in his life that he was still very voilent towards himself and others, so ihad to buy special equipment for him:special doors, huge bean bags that covered the whole room, and then istill had to buy clothes, shoes, school supplies, pay for child care, but food, keep the water, gas and electric on. paying a hospital that has recieved a grant to pay for me being there and they were able to use my poverty level as a tax write off-so they pretty much got paid twice.
and they cannot turn you away! county hospitals have to treat you and they have to do everything they can for you.
i guess i see things differntly-i have always been poor and resourceful. i don't care if they send me mean little letters or call me 45 times a day (and that is not an exageration=45 times)and i don't care that they threaten to take me to court-ok...get blood out of a turnip! stand in line. i pay my necessity bills and that is all the $$ i have.
i also knoe that if you sent them a money order or check for $1.00 and they take it then that is the maxium amount that you have to pay them.
so don't stress out about it. you can pay it off as long as you can and then don' worry about it.
i think we have enough to stress out about-i don't care that this dr has to take the 2007 lexus....that is sad t me-HA!
so i guess my answer on this is if they turn it into collections and you are one of those people who needs the tremendously high credit rating then send them a$1.00 or $10.00 and it will show up on your credit rating that yes you have this bill but you are paying on it and that is the most important thing to people who check your credit-but they also look at how you pay your basic necessities and they are getting turned off on a regualarly due to lack of payments-then that is where you will get in trouble.

The fact is if you are an er, you need to be treated so I don't thinking running for the door would work. I got a letter from a lawyer they are suing this class action suit for this company that collects for hospitals,I guess they did something that they shouldn't have done.

Commenting about reply from Mike in the Desert:
When people go to the ER nowadays, it is not always an emergency anymore. With no other way to get care because they haven't got the insurance or the cash, they go to the ER.
I was trying to point out that the system in place now is changing, you can no longer count on being left alone if you just pay off your bill as you can afford it, say $25 a month.
If you agree on your admission paperwork to allow the hospital to let another company handle your account, the hospital can sell your slow-pay account to a for-profit for cash without even telling you.
Then you no longer owe the money to the hospital, you owe it to the for-profit who can then add on fees, interest and delinquent penalties.
They can also trash your credit which many people need for mortgages, car loans, etc. if you do not meet their new terms which may include payments of $1000 or more within a short time frame.
So if you are not bleeding profusely or dying, you may not want to sign that paperwork. At least read it.