I’m not saying this isn’t worth trying because like… anything is worth trying but when I was sent a $22k bill for my gallbladder removal when my insurance fucked up, it was fully itemized from the get go. There was literally no shame in charging me $220 for ten tablets of acetaminophen or anything like that. Most hospital bills come in already itemized.
The idea that you can shame them into feeling bad for their prices or that they’re being kept secret is giving bad advice and I do wonder if people spreading it have ever actually had to deal with truly expensive medical procedures that aren’t covered by insurance.
Like the most an itemized bill is gonna do for you is be there so you can check if you are being charged for things you straight up did not receive (which is quite possible).
Better advice is looking up the specific hospital’s patient advocacy line and seeing if you can apply for financial assistance, how their interest free payment plan, or look into the Charity Care offerings of the hospital, if it’s public and not private. If you are under a certain wage bracket, you may be eligible for the entirety of your bill being covered or receiving a discount.
I know this is a lot less #PettyRevenge or whatever, less sticking it to the man than “Haha, I wanna see my BILL PLEASE! NO SCAMMING THIS TIME!” or whatever but like… these are more realistic than your hospital suddenly being shy about telling you all the dumb shit they are shamelessly overcharging you for.
I lucked out with my $22k bill and it ended up just being a failure to send paperwork about my insurance coverage and I basically considered suicide foree an entire week for no reason but I WISH people had given me REALISTIC advice for my problems instead of “Uwu, ask for an itemized bill.”
Listen y’all… hospitals aren’t ashamed for charging you $1k per second of your nurse counting back from five or whatever.
It’s ALWAYS worth trying, though it will often involve further questioning and not just “itemized bill please” (ie asking why some individual item is X and why another thing is Y price, you have to actually challenge the bill) but I think this is a lot of false hope when most people actually working to help people with medical debt will not give you this advice. OP of this tweet is a 22 year old who struggled to answer any basic questions from peopel replying to her tweets.
And the rest are telling people to just not pay it because “credit scores are fake.”
Please… please god just do more research into how to manage medical bills. Don’t listen to everything you see on twitter. This is one small step that might help a little bit, MAYBE, but there are much better things to be spending your time on in terms of accessing help.
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