Quarantine

In My Humble Opinion
1

I was presented with this problem and wanted to see if the internet might know a way to help.

So during the swine flu outbreak I had a friend who was asked to agree to quarantine herself at the hospital. She was basically told that she had to agree in order to avoid spreading the illness to the others. Thankfully, she only had the non-porcine variety but that’s where the good news stops. When you’re sick and the doctor tells you that you have the super-flu and gives you a clipboard and tells you that you have to sign if you want treatment, you might be forgiven for not thinking to ask about the little details. So now the hospital is billing her for the extra precautions they asked her to endure to protect the other patients and staff. It’s a significant amount of money and the health insurance isn’t covering it. Any suggestions or ideas that might help her out?

Your eternal fan,
MASkeptc

2

Hospitals throw a price on everything, and then see what sticks. Your friend has a right to negotiate to attempt to lower the over all cost.

The hospital expects to negotiate, and thus starts the bid ridiculously high to try to get as much as it can. It can drastically cut the price, because it would rather get paid something than have its patient declare bankruptcy and get nothing.

There are medical advocacy groups that help patients negotiate. Try looking around online for groups in your friend’s area.

3

Since this involves legal advice, let’s move it to IMHO.

Colibri
General Questions Moderator

4

True facts.