Young Adults Crushed by Surprise Medical Bills
Young adults are struggling with the high cost of healthcare, often facing unexpected and substantial medical bills they cannot afford. This is compounded by factors like limited work hours, income restrictions for assistance, and past negative experiences with healthcare providers and insurance, leading to anxiety and financial strain.
SOURCES (60)
“Health care season is here i work full time, in massachusetts and i don’t qualify for non deductible health care because i am married and we make over the “$84,000” limit to get cheaper healthcare. my job is offering health care for $200+ a week,…”
“Had a fun thing happen after going in for my first ever "yearly preventative skin cancer screening" with the dermatologist. Ended up getting a bill for $51 after insurance did whatever it does. I call Anthem to confirm that they do in face pay for a yearly skin cancer screening. Call the dermatologist and explain there may be a mistake because Anthem pays for this visit and asked if it could be re-coded. I was informed that these yearly preventative skin cancer screenings can only be d”
“My doctor’s office has signs in the waiting room that alert you as to what type of questions will trigger a non-preventative visit. I really appreciate how they help patients avoid unexpected insurance charges. More offices should do that.”
“Your Dr is a greedy asshole. Fight this with the billing department and find a new Dr.”
“Uh no! I had the same thing happen to me. Fight that shit! It was a wellness visit. They asked about your overall health and no treatment was done. They backed mine out. And, they could code for both wellness and sick, but usually won't because it is a rate decrease for them. Do not let them do this.”
“Sitting in my MD’s office as I type. Same thing. Billed me for annual check up because we spoke about some other issues Bunch of crap”
“This happened to me at my wellness check this year. I asked for a flonase rx and an ENT referral. Boom additional charges. I did fight it but the doctor insisted I was billed correctly.”
“I understand it! I’ve been in the ER twice in the last year for bad car accidents (neither my fault) and my wife had a baby this year. So we’re not new to medical bills. Next time save the cash for other stuff. Let the medical bills sit until you can pay them. Hopefully no more medical bills any time soon, but ha know, life happens lol.”
“Maybe you’ve already done this but I would talk with the hospital patient advocate/get on a payment plan etc. Medical bills are often scary but negotiable and there are many pathways you should exhaust before putting any more on a CC”
“Thank you for this insight. We typically did prioritize medical bills, though we usually paid in cash. But then the rest of our shit would go on CC so same same. We’ve both landed in the ER twice over the past year and had a lot of follow up stuff. We seem to be on a good path now”
“They also told me my insurance was approved, then told my parents separately that it was not. They were going to have them pay something over $6,000. I’m happy to hear you dodged a bullet; hope you find somewhere that gets you the help you need”
“I prepared for the birth of my child for many, many months including how much it was going to cost us. I can’t tell you how many times I called my insurance company to make sure my insurance plan was covered, my husband’s insurance plan was covered, and all-in-all we were covered no matter what. I knew it was still gonna be a hefty bill, but I needed to make sure there wasn’t going to be any surprises. While you can plan for these types of situations, you can’t plan for what life can unexpectedl”
“My wife and I are pregnant for the first time and she is due in March. We have some medical appointments along the way of course and I'd like to avoid paying my deductible once for the end of this year then a second time at the beginning of the year next year. We have cash set aside and can provide a deposit if that option exists, but this is all completely new to us. Any help is appreciated. submitted by /u/TheokOG [link] [comments]”
“Dude I didn't know the gallbladder was effected by that much! That's wild that it's not automatically screened for”
“More hospitals should just not charge things they (apparently) have no need to charge for.”
“AI has been helping me getting refunds from my overcharged/fraudulent medical bills. I’m getting worried about how dependent we are now on it.”
“That's amazing they wrote off the whole thing. hospitals really don't advertise this stuff at all, feels like you have to stumble onto the info from someone else's story just to know it's even possible”
“I'm so glad you figured it out OP! I put mine on a credit card when I was young and didn't know better, I'm still paying it off. Now I treat every medical bill as negotiable.”
“For the hospital in my area, it was gross income up to 400% of poverty level. They are not all the same though... and I believe some also consider hardship allowances.”
“Just a few other notes about medical debt. If it's under $500 it doesn't even get reported to the credit bureaus. If it's over $500, it doesn't get reported until it's a year later and then gets removed once it's paid. You can also take your time and set up a payment plan so you don't even need to pay the $190 right away. The Biden administration had a rule that medical debt wasn't even going to be reported to the credit bureaus, but the Trump administration overt”
“The hospital where I work has a great program. Granted it's in a nice area and they have many many donations. If you have trouble paying your bill. They have a fund that will pay it. So if you are having trouble always ask if they have programs that can help. It never hurts to ask.”
“I have recommended this to others on here before and was downvoted to hell! But it’s actually true. My brother overdosed, had an ambo ride and 3 days in hospital. He had no job at the time and they wrote it completely off. It’s at least worth asking about imo!”
“Apply for charity care at the hospital. If you're homeless you should qualify.”
“Had an ER visit a while back and after insurance my portion was still around $2,300. I kept staring at the bill thinking there was no way I could pay it without putting it on a credit card. I ended up talking to my cousin about possibly borrowing some money from him. Figured it would be way easier paying him back over time than paying interest on a credit card. He asked if I had called the hospital billing department and specifically asked about financial assistance. I had no idea that was even”
“Idk if this is normal but I got the final bill for both my baby’s NICU stay and my labor For my birth is was almost $70k (THANK FUCK INSURANCE COVERED IT) and for the NICU is was like $90k for a week WHAT THE FUCK, from the bottom of my heart, truly WHAT THE FUCK I got laid off so don’t work and my partner and I aren’t married so the state essentially paid for my birth and NICU minus $3k because I’m on state insurance but from the bottom of my heart whhyyyyy wtffff who tf can pay this???? Why is”
“I'm newer to Reddit so please excuse me. I've seen lots of posts over medical debt recently. I had to learn the hard way this last Christmas to pick up the phone and call the hospital especially if it's a non-profit hospital system. You will be amazed at what they will write off if you just have the strength to call them and be honest and be like listen I can tell you my financial situation and let them know your income your housing expenses your vehicle expenses insurance utilities”
“I’ll keep it simple since there’s no way around it. The hospital, Memorial Hospital down in FL, is charging us $27k for delivery our baby. The hospital is out of network for the baby but the hospital was in network for mom for the c-section. Bottom line, apparently we had to find a hospital that was in network for both mom and baby prior to any of this so that we could get covered by both companies. As a surprise to no one we did not know that and now we are being billed $27k. We already sent an”
“I’m with Sunlife in Canada and been off work for the last year due to health related issues. It’s taken over a year for my insurance and dr’s to get their shit together and get all of it done. On top of that I have to pay my job for insurance every month so I can still have it. Is this normal? Why doesn’t the employer cover it? Can you get this money back? Am I wrong to think this isn’t right? submitted by /u/Calm-Effort2517 [link] [comments]”
“I just had a seizure recently and woke up in the hospital after someone noticed me on the ground. I was hooked up to an IV and I'm very grateful they saved my life. But I just got an email for the billing statement. And I owe $1,610.86. For something I literally couldn't control, and I never asked them to treat me or take me to the hospital. This is literally crazy. I know I can probably bounce back from it. But it's getting ridiculous. I have been to the hospital multiple times thes”
“Primary care physician here. Recently discovered that one of my patients is being billed for Chronic Care Management by their urologist. She says some woman calls her a few times a month but she doesn’t know what it’s about. She said that she did raise one medical concern but the woman referred her to her PCP. Then I found out that another patient, on a visit to her podiatrist, was told about a program they were offering that would “cost you nothing”. They sat her in front of a tablet and she ha”
“I got a $7000+ bill from my provider. I checked with my insurance and they said they used two different codes for my procedure & surgery, only one code was accepted & they paid for. the first code seems to be correct but there are two others I have no idea what they mean. (Diagnosis Code D259) (Diagnosis Code N946) They couldn’t tell me which codes would be accepted but they said to reach out to the provider and tell them the different code would need to be changed for them to pay for th”
“Hello! I have an ambulance bill that is $ 2k. At the time, I didn’t have health insurance. The ambulance agreed to settle the bill for one payment of $ 1.4k. At the time, I didn’t have the money and still don’t. Now the bill has been sent to collections. I already live paycheck to paycheck. I’m honestly drowning in debt with making less than $30k a year before tax. Is it even worth trying to settle the debt with the collection company? I am not really sure of the next step. Any advice is welcome”
I didn’t pay! But I did say I wanted to try to contact the hospital.
“So I went to an allergist for the first time and the bill is much higher than anticipated. One of the odd things I'm seeing is that instead of billing me one time for my allergy serum, they are splitting the billing into 3 months of bills. $500-$500-$200. Looking at the billing, they're billing it as if I had services on dates where I did not actually have services done. According to them, they are doing this and billing these as "Antigen Therapy Services" over 3 months to give”
“Always ask for proof of debt 1st. If it's yours, ask for a reduction. Like offer to pay 50% in 2 monthly payments. Most times you can work a deal.”
“Rent is due tomorrow so I said that I could pay it when I get my paycheck. They kept pressing for payment, even offering to put my card on file to auto pay on Friday, I hung up because I don’t like when people get pushy for my money. That being said, do I even need to pay this? It’s so old and so little (in terms of debts). I have more medical expenses coming up so would rather not be paying for ones that are almost 6 years old. Did what I said about being able to pay Friday reset my debt? Now I”
“Hello, Im in the US and have BCBS and at the start of the summer looked into starting therapy again. I have a high cost deductible and was searching for someone who wouldn’t cost me nearly $200 per session. I found someone that had quoted me with my insurance it would only be $36, and had two sessions at that cost that I paid. Early July, I was notified that actually my cost was going up to $176 due to my insurance, so I cancelled services and haven’t been back since. Last week, they charged me”
“Not financial advice, just a data comparison. My country's insurance portal tracks what it paid toward my covered care automatically. I also track every yen I actually spend on health stuff in a budgeting app. Put the two side by side for four years running and they were wildly different — most years by a factor of 3-6x. Curious if anyone else has compared an institutional health dataset against their own personal tracking and found a similar gap. submitted by /u/DiggerStash [lin”
“Anyone have a deductible of 10,000? I just got a positive (yay!) but I am so nervous with this insurance what my global maternity fee will be. It’s also my understand that the billing changes in Jan 2027 away from the current system of global fees. I am waiting on my OBGYN to give me a quote but I am sitting on the edge of my seat.. not sure what my options are here. I’ve thought about going a different route and trying to find an office that doesn’t do the global fees, as I plan to switch insur”
“Recently my mom got bloodwork done and a stomach xray and her total came out to about 100$, and she has no health insurance. I have health insurance and I just went for bloodwork and my bill came out to be 300-400$. How does that make sense submitted by /u/True_Bus3994 [link] [comments]”
“How much does each code bill out Anywhere I can find this info. submitted by /u/Cat-cool21 [link] [comments]”
“This past year I owed about $1000. I was without health insurance and was paying out of pocket. Additionally, I was told I am required to make an estimated tax payment. I tried to get them to tell me why, but they just told me that it was required. I'm not sure why I'm paying this as I now have health insurance and don't claim myself. Anyway, I was wondering if I should just bite the bullet and pay off what I now owe (about 600) or continue with my payment plan. This won't "”
“Hello I had a cyst in my mouth that needed to be removed and biopsied. The biopsies were covered by my health insurance, but the actual excision surgery where they removed the lesion/cyst was denied by my health insurance. The oral surgeon told me it was a medical procedure and they physically / legally couldn't bill dental for it, as it wasn't a dental procedure. They billed my medical insurance with CPT 21030. My medical insurance kicked it back with a denial saying: > "Note S8”
“I've been making monthly payments for a couple of procedures I had to have last year. I was told a few months ago (only because I had to call about a different billing issue) that this unit of the hospital was going to be transitioning to a new system, but they had no information about exactly when or how to access the new system. I checked the bill payment website regularly to see if any new info was posted, and a few weeks ago started getting a "website currently unavailable" whe”
“They've taken thousands of our bills this year! And another medical bill (not hospital) was reduced to 1/3 of what is was.”
“My husband was in an accident and had to have surgery. They sent all the bills and they equal to about 12k. We don’t have 12k. How can we lower the bill? We have called and they said that since the bill was originally 287k that they cannot lower the bill anymore. Anything else we can do? submitted by /u/curiousowl2210 [link] [comments]”
“Did you look into financial assistance with the hospital? That's covered some of our bills.”
“yeah, thats what worries me. crazy how quickly medical issue can wipe out years of financial progress. hope things are better for you now”
“Do they send you a bill afterwards or do they like ask for payment up front? Also, that makes sense about custody!”
“I honestly don't know what to do. I have thousands of dollars in medical debt split across multiple debt collection agencies, doctors, hospitals, etc. For some of them they don't take payment plans, only lump sums. Most of my income goes towards rent, vet bills, groceries, utilities, and medical stuff. I still owe multiple radiologists while having even MORE imaging coming up. I just had a ton of imaging done that didn't even help diagnose my condition and now I have to get more. I p”
“I'm 21 years old, and back in February I got into a bad car accident with my boyfriend. I broke my foot and had to undergo surgery. I didn't have insurance at the time, and now I have so many medical bills I cannot afford and don't want to be paying for the rest of my life. I'm not sure what to do. My bf broke his nose and had to get surgery too, but he has insurance, and everything worked out for him. He told me he doesn't want to marry me and have a family together if I hav”
“I got into a minor accident while uninsured for literally two days. I’m unbelievably mad at myself so spare me the judgment. I cancelled progressive when they added coverage to my policy because I didn’t sign a letter they sent saying I didn’t want it, which was insane to me. It had doubled the cost and I couldn’t afford it so I cancelled my policy on 8/19, I was shopping around for insurances in the mean time got caught up with work, had an interview the next day before work and got into a fend”