Hello,
Ok, I am writing this because I dont think a lot of people know this. From my experience most major hosptials have a financial aid office and if you get on there website you can usually find the forms. I have used this one 3 different surgerys.
1) my wife broke her foot. After insurance we had a out of pocket balance of I think $1200 or so we owed the hospital. They wavied about 600+ dollars off the bill.
2) my son would not calm down at the dentist, so the dentist had to do the work at the hospital. In a nut shell, dental insurance would not cover hospital charges, Medical insurance would not cover dental charges, we ended up oweing $2400 dollars to the hospital, they wrote off $742.00 dollars
3) my latest surgery out out of pocket to hospital is $467 dollars, we filled out the paper work and now owe $22 (plus 261 to doc)
My point is fill out the paperwork even if you think you make too much money, the first two we were given a discount and we made around $70,000 when those surgerys took place. Right now we are making a lot less and that is why I guess we got such a great discount.
Dont think just because you make good money they wont do something, all they can do is say no and you will just be out the time it took to fill out the paper. For my wife surgery on her foot I learned this, I worked with a woman whos sister was in the financial aid office, she told me, "Fill it out, most people have no idea this is possible and the worse that will happen is they say no."
Most of the time it is based on Income/number of people in family and it seems up until about 400% of poverty level they will either discount or write off or something.
My brother kept saying, he made too much money, but he read the form wrong, they might not do a "charity" but they did a discount of serveral hundred dollars, every little bit helps.
Fill the form out, DONT bullshit them in case they ask for more paperwork and see what happens, you may be surprised. My brother sure was.
Thanks, Tony
PS In all 3 cases we have had medical insurance too, so take the chance and fill it out!