Re: Has anyone ever been turned down by a hospital for unpaid bills?

Posted by Christy (205.188.116.84) on June 24, 2004 at 16:15:37:

In Reply to: Re: Has anyone ever been turned down by a hospital for unpaid bills? posted by Andrea on June 24, 2004 at 15:28:07:

If it is a privately owned hospital, they have no obligation to treat you under any circumstance, but if they are a county hospital and receive public funds, they have to treat you by law reguardless of if you owe them for previous services or lack of ability to pay. If they are obligated to treat you, they have to post signs in the ER and at all entrances saying so. A privately owned hospital can refuse to allow you in at the emergency room door even if you arrive in an abulance. They did a thing on this on one of the new magazine shows a few years back, I think it was 20/20. A man was in a car wreck, the abulance took him to the nearest ER, they refused him because he had no insurance. He bled to death in the back of the abulance on the way to the nearest county hospital, which was 20 minutes further. The poor guy died only because the nearest hospital was a private hospital owned by a group of doctors. The wife sued and lost.

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