Yes, you are on the hook for the bill even if involuntary. You made some kind of statement which indicated a threat of self-harm or harm to others. Each state has different requirements and process for it. I’m in Massachusetts and it is commonly called, “being sectioned”, as the form is from Section 12 of a Massachusetts General Law Title VII Chapter 123. Here is the link if you’d like to peruse the relevant law. https://malegislature.gov/Laws/GeneralLaws/PartI/TitleXVII/Chapter123/Section12. That is for Massachusetts but every state has their own version of it, who can issue it, and what must follow. In Massachusetts you are required to be evaluated by a mental health professional within 72 hours of being involuntarily brought to a healthcare facility in which case the provider will either extend the hold or release it.
As far as the bill unfortunately you are responsible for it as you received the care. The good news though is medical billing is something of a shellgame. Most healthcare systems receive reimbursement through insurance whether public or private. These insurers negotiate favorable rates with these healthcare systems to show effectiveness and cost reduction. The healthcare systems know this so the, “sticker price”, for services is often well outside the actual cost and this is where it benefits you.
I worked for a decade in a private 911 system. We based our operating costs on an average reimbursement of about $250 because that was the average payment we received from insurance. Public was lower and commercial insurance higher but that was the average. We, and all similar companies, “billed” about $1500 to ensure when Blue Cross paid it’s rate it came out to a number we could have a margin on. The remainder was billed to the patient but this was never money we expected to collect. Ever. Patient’s don’t pay, just don’t count on it. Eventually the bill is sold to a collection agency for less than pennies on the dollar. So anytime a patient would reach out to settle a debt our billing department had tremendous latitude to settle at a lower price because anything after insurance pays is practically free profit. A $5k bill could be settled for far far less.
Different healthcare delivery systems work differently but they are all not counting on patients settling their full bills. Persistence is key. They will negotiate and you can get the bill down considerably and in some cases even waived. I’m sorry this is the system we exist in but I hope this helps.
The remainder was billed to the patient but this was never money we expected to collect. Ever. Patient’s don’t pay, just don’t count on it.
Then why bill them in the first place??
And I kinda feel like a chump for paying my ~$600 ER bill.
Woah woah woah woah woah, this is the best system we have, sir. Communism has a 100% failure rate. You use an iPhone. Venezuela.
We, and all similar companies, “billed” about $1500 to ensure when Blue Cross paid it’s rate it came out to a number we could have a margin on. The remainder was billed to the patient but this was never money we expected to collect. Ever. Patient’s don’t pay, just don’t count on it. Eventually the bill is sold to a collection agency for less than pennies on the dollar.
You ever wonder how much of America’s vaunted GDP is just this shit?
20% of the economy is FIRE. The real, physical economy is about a third of the size of China’s lol.
Another 20 percent is healthcare spending
private 911 system.
Big Crassus in Charge of Firefighting energy.
God, one thing I really want to do when I’m feeling [REDACTED] is call my insurance company to contest a bill.
The good news though is medical billing is something of a shellgame.
That’s the good news.
I remember when an unexpected $600 bill sent me into a suicidal spiral. FUck that
/r/legaladvice/
is full of actual cops and it’s baffling how redditors still don’t know that
And when you don’t pay, won’t they send collections and put your money on a credit report, making your financial life a misery?
And wellness checks can result in cops murdering you.
Cool country 😂
Checking to make sure there’s no wellness going on
Yeah this is one of the more malicious things out there, those numbers are a fucking trap. I called one for a friend when I was a teenager and noped the fuck out after they kept trying to trick me into telling me where they lived. It left me extremely disillusioned. At one point the woman on the phone asked me “okay so what do you want me to do?” when I refused to give them an address. I don’t fucking know! I’m a confused teenager who is worried about my friend! You’re the one who should fucking tell me!
Awful joke (cw/self harm)
spoiler
Oh I see you called the suicide hotline, not the suicide prevention hotline
The Navy ad at the bottom kinda just brings it all together tbqh.
I second this.
Holy fucking ACAB and that often includes doctors
There are alot of comrades in mental health but they’re not the ones running the show. I worked at a large CMHC and our administrators were PMC ghouls who aren’t interested in fixing anything. They also made all their money by skimming 90% of the medicaid payment to providers, while paying the providers dogshit wages.
But the libs told me that there was no coercion in capitalism and it’s all based on voluntary transactions!
Sounds like I’d be more likely to cw myself after the whole ordeal instead of being convinced life is worth living… Not saying one should, but damn it’s so backwards.
The same people who won’t shut up about how it’s selfish will turn around and lock someone up, drug them without their consent - but don’t count on them to do anything about improving their life. Depression is treated as a moral failure and you will be beaten until morale improves.
“Just stop being depressed”
Well said.
selfish is asking us to go on suffering so they won’t be sad
This is why I would never again ever, EVER, tell anyone I was suicidal, no matter how much I thought I needed help. I’ve been to a “mental hospital” twice in my life for suicidal attempts/ideation and if that doesn’t make you want to actually pull it off then nothing will.
They are the opposite of helpful and then when you get cut loose you’ll be stuck with withdrawals for whatever medication they chose to force on you, and then they slap a few thousands dollars in bills on you that they know you already couldn’t afford.
YEP SAME. Getting captured by the cops a few times only gave me seven years of debt collector harassment and taught me to stay quiet
I was in a psyche ward for about a week and a half and it was a terrible experience. They’ll give you drugs which you’re not in there long enough to know if they work and since you’ve missed a week of work you longer have a job to afford them anyway once you’re out. I was homeless and all they could offer was that I should just go back to live with my abusive parents and I finally had to just lie and say I was all better now, just tell them whatever I thought they wanted to hear to finally let me out.
Almost happened to me as a kid. Only reason it didn’t is because I caught pneumonia at just the right time and they told me to fuck off.
Topic detected: Mental health, su@cide, self harm.
Subject matter AD match identifed.
America’s Navy - PROMOTED
Fucking classy
Incredible how American hospitals can just copy their business model from Asian tourist scams, and also have it enforced by law. No need to hire triads. An actual infinite money glitch, if you can live with yourself harassing suicidal people.
I haven’t heard about the tourist scams. How do those work?
Sorry I was unclear. There are many cases where shady tour guides force (usually Chinese) tourists to buy expensive souvenirs, sometimes under threat. Examples:
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-34584235, https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202306/07/WS647fd7e6a31033ad3f7bade4.html
Man if the fucking hotline is working with the cops like this that is all it is doing, it fundamentally cannot accomplish the goal of actually helping people while this is the case. What kind of sickos must work those lines? “Ok honey it’s ok, don’t do anything extreme, your life is valuable ok?” Mutes mic “911 bag em and tag em” unmutes “ok now can you confirm for the record you are suicidal?”
Reminds me I called one of these lines once and it was super sketchy how they dug for personal info. This was so long ago they probably couldn’t quickly map the number to a person too.
locked post is so very “reddit mod”
Legal advice is probably run by cops. Their advice would get a real lawyer disbarred.
Not probably. Verifiably. More than one of them is verified on r/ProtectandServe last I checked.
These facilities are fucking terrible and like half the nurses that run them do not care about you at all (the other half are extremely sweet and kind, which is extremely confusing)
Materially, they’re fine, like relatively comfy and all, but they do not treat you like a living person there
Ive been to several psych wards and the bad ones indeed treat you like caged animals
Also the food sucks
The comfy ones treat you like organically fed cattle lmao
Haha that’s true. The only staff that actually treated us like humans were in constant danger of getting reprimanded for interacting with us too much
