So recently a good friend and my room mate died.
He was estranged from his family so when he went to the hospital, I was the contact person.
So he died.
So today, one of his doctors had their assistant call me. My friend had Medicare part A but not part B. (a separate ranting thread) So what he did for the patient wasn’t covered.
She asked if I would pay for his care. She would even negotiate a deal.
Really she did.
I didn’t even laugh my head off when I said “No”.
My condolences, and holy shit, yes, that’s a dumb question! :eek:
People will do things that are a LOT worse than dumb if money is involved.
So what’s that make you two?
Absolutely nothing.
Thinking about it logically (I’m in Canada, so I don’t have to deal with that Medicare nonsense), she probably figured that there was no harm in trying; for all she knew you might have been a pushover and been able to sweet-talk you into forking over some $. She’s guaranteed to get nothing if she doesn’t try.
If your friend owed money to anyone else, don’t be surprised if someone else calls and tries to convince you that morally or legally or any other way they can think of that YOU should pay for it. (Of course, you already know that you don’t.)
Also, don’t be surprised if you hear from “Virginia” again on the same topic.
This reminds me of a news story I read a few years ago. A woman died owing money on a bank loan. The bank called her son and tried to get him to assume responsibility for her loan. When he declined, the bank representative asked, “Don’t you want to help your mother?” He replied, “My mother is dead. I wouldn’t be helping her - I’d be helping you.”
Condolences on your friend dying.
And yeah, that was a fucking stupid thing to ask you.
I sure hope the news story named the bank. If it’s the bank’s policy to say stuff like that to the survivors, they deserve to lose a whole lot of customers.
We had our own experience with the bank leaning on my mother to pay her ex-husband’s debts with the bank - their divorce decree was finalized days before he died, but finalized it was. She really didn’t need them calling her up and flat out lying to her about her responsibility to pay for his debts (she was formally discharged from his debts in the divorce decree). When she pushed back they slunk off, but I still think that was a lowdown, dirty thing for the bank to have done (that was the Scotiabank for any Canadians reading).
A co-worker of mine gets calls from bill collectors trying to go after debts that her ex-husband, who she divorced 10 years ago. She often laughs at them.
The kicker is that the ex-husband is actually pretty well off financially. The debt isn’t legit, it was a total screwup by the bank that decided the response to a court ordered arbitrated decision against them was to sell the debt as fast as possible to the sleaziest of debt collectors who have since passed (sold) the debt to the next pile of debt collecting scumbags on the list.
I don’t know, I can imagine if the OP was very well off, why he might wish to pay this off. Or even could know that someone in that estranged family would like to pay it off. There are a lot of people who do such things, I think. We didn’t have to pay off M’s credit card, after she passed, but we did so, out of her estate. Because while it would not matter to either of us, we were very aware that it was what she would have wanted.
It seems self evident to me that hospitals have more funding for those in need, if they put some minimal effort into seeking out payment where they can. I can’t fault them for calling, sorry.
Banks launder money for drug dealers and Al Qaeda. Banks sell financial instruments to pension fund managers that they KNOW are going to fail. Banks rip off homeowners left and right. Do you really think a little thing like hitting up a grieving person for money would bother a bank?
Her estate had a legal obligation to pay her debts. This is not the same as a relative, ex-spouse or friend using their own money to pay off the debts of the deceased.
When my rescue director died, we all put money together to pay off the vet bill. That was the right thing to do. Maybe we should have tried to pay off the hospital bills, but we didn’t.
“Why aren’t you rich?” or “How come you didn’t graduate cum laude?”
Actually she seemed unaware that he died. The only phone number they had was mine.
Which seems strange because everyone at the hospital seem to know he was going to die.
Even back in billing? Must have been a small hospital. My sister is an administrator of a 32 bed hospital - about as small as it gets - and because its that small, billing isn’t even handled in house, its handled by a larger sister hospital.
Exactly. The estate in elbows’ case wasn’t being at all magnanimous - it was just doing the minimum it was legally and morally required to do. Completely different than paying off an estate’s debts when you have no reason to do it.
I’m sorry about your friend, Zebra. 