Can You Go to Jail for Not Paying Medical Bills – Overview
Unpaid medical bills can lead to similar consequences as other types of debt, such as credit score impact and collection actions. However, the approach to collections and potential consequences can vary due to medical debt’s unique aspects. Though you may not go to jail for not paying medical bills, the consequences of unpaid medical bills may include the following:
1. Reminders and phone calls
2. Additional charges
3. Forwarding to a collection agency
4. Increasing letters and phone calls
5. Legal action (wage garnishing, etc.)
Many Americans today are burdened with expensive medical bills and wonder what will happen if they fail to repay them.
Did you know you can reduce your medical bills by simply negotiating? Yes, you can! If you cannot pay the entire medical bill, you can ask the hospital to reduce the bill so that you can clear it off!
According to a recent survey, over 41% of Americans are in medical debt due to low incomes and high medical expenses. But what if you are unable to pay your medical bills? Can you go to jail for not paying them?
Many people ask this question because they fear facing legal challenges from insurance companies. To decode this question, we have come up with the correct answer and some ways to reduce your future medical bills and live a worry-free life.
Can you go to jail for not paying medical bills?- Before cracking out on the answer to this question, we must know the consequences of not paying the medical bills timely. Here, we have prepared a list of answers that will eventually give you the correct answer to your questions.
Consequences of Not Paying the Medical Bills
When you have closed all the doors, debt collectors will keep on smashing the doors from the outside. They will give you nightmares, and eventually, you will be ready to pay the pending bills as soon as possible. But what if you don’t have anything to pay? Will I have to go to jail?
You will go through three different stages if you have not paid your medical bills and cannot pay the pending bills due to a lack of money.
Stage 1: Medical Debt Collections
Many active collection agencies collect debt. Your hospital or medical insurance company can sell your debt to such agencies at a nominal cost.
When a medical debt collector visits you, you can negotiate with them and ask for a reduced-price settlement. If he agrees to your request, you can immediately close this debt. If you cannot pay anything, then you have to visit courts and all, i.e., the next stage.
Stage 2: Facing Lawsuits
If you cannot meet with the debt collector or negotiate with him because you do not have any money, the collection agency might take you to court. They will begin preparations for legal action against you because you have not paid your medical bills to date.
They have every right to sue you for not paying your medical bills. You must face legal action and frequent court visits if they are ready.
The judge could order wage garnishment. Wage garnishment is a process where a sum from your paycheck will be deducted before it goes to your bank. The deducted sum will be paid directly to the debt collection agency as the judge has ordered.
If wage garnishment is not suitable, the debt collection agency can use liens and levies, two more options for collecting the pending medical bills from the defaulters.
A creditor can place a claim against your property. They will pursue liens against your home or any other property you own to collect their pending bills.
A bank account levy is an order where a collector can deduct money from your bank account without your permission. Whenever your bank is credited with some money, the collector can withdraw it without your knowledge; that is how the agency works!
Stage 3: Jail
You can’t go to jail for not paying your medical bills. Instead, you can ask the court for other ways or some relief to complete the pending amount.
A debtor’s examination is a court proceeding where the creditor can question the debtor about their finances. Failure to comply with a court order to appear may lead to legal consequences, including a warrant for your arrest, not directly due to the unpaid debt but for ignoring the court’s order.
You must appear if the judge orders you to appear in the debtor’s examination. If you ignore his judgment, the judge can issue a warrant for your arrest.
Ensure you follow the judge’s orders if you face legal action from the debt collection agencies. You will be free from the debt as the judge will give you many options to do so.
If you struggle to pay off medical debt for surgery, hospital stays or regular doctor’s visits, you could experience long-lasting financial damage for not paying them off. However, you can reduce the burden and maintain a good credit score in several ways.
How to Reduce Your Medical Bill?
Repaying mounting medical debts alone is not easy, but several ways exist to lessen the debt burden.
Strategies for reducing medical bills require proactive and persistent efforts. They emphasize the importance of actively engaging with healthcare providers and billing departments to manage medical debt.
Here are the 5 Ways That May Help You Reducing Your Medical Bill
1 – Review Medical Bills
Never assume that all medical bills are accurate. Many contain errors, such as duplicate billing for the same service. You may also find unreasonable charges with ambiguous titles difficult for the patient to understand.
Though you may receive similar bills from different service providers for past procedures, it helps to review the medical bill’s details and ask questions about line-item charges that you need help to recognize or understand. This may help you to reduce a significant amount of money from your medical bills.
2 – Check the Bluebook Value
You may not be aware, but every medical procedure has a fixed Bluebook value, similar to a vehicle. These values are the pre-set amounts that healthcare providers and hospitals will accept as payment for a procedure, device, test, or any other relevant medical or healthcare service. However, this amount can also vary.
For instance, hospitals may charge different prices to different insurance companies, so a patient at one hospital may pay the average amount. In contrast, another patient at a different hospital may have to pay nearly double the amount for the same procedure.
This often results in uninsured patients incurring heavy medical debts and increasing unpaid medical bills. So, check the cost of every item on the bill against its Bluebook value and prepare to make phone calls.
3 – Negotiate the Medical Bill
If you can pay the medical bill after a visit to the doctor’s office, you can ask for a prompt pay discount. This can help you save a significant percentage of your total bill.
On the other hand, if you cannot pay on time, you can explain your situation to the doctor or hospital and suggest that you may require a discount or financial help to pay your medical bills. In such cases, you may be asked to provide tax returns and other financial statements.
So, negotiating your medical bill may take a noticeable portion of the debt off of your medical bill. Besides this, you may also get the option to pay off the medical debt with a low or no-interest payment plan.
Hospitals and doctor’s offices encourage this practice as sometimes writing off unpaid debt as a loss gets the organization several tax benefits, often outweighing the original debt amount.
4 – Use Your Home Equity
Using home equity to pay off medical debt is an option but should be considered carefully due to the risks of securing debt with your home. It’s essential to assess the implications for your financial stability and consider alternatives.
5 – Consolidate the Medical Bill
Debt consolidation can be a strategy for managing medical bills, allowing for a single, potentially lower-interest payment. However, it’s crucial to carefully compare interest rates and terms to ensure this approach offers a financial advantage. This allows you to manage a monthly bill instead of numerous notices and bills from hospitals, doctors, and collections agencies. Check the interest rate on online loans to ensure that it is within the interest rate charged by your original creditors.
Conclusion
Though you may not go to jail for not paying your medical bills, you will experience financial distress. To avoid this burden, you can ask the doctor or hospital for prompt-pay discounts or consolidate all your debts into one for more manageable repayment.
Consult the lender about the interest rate before taking a personal loan to pay off mounting medical debts.
See Also
How to Get Medical Bills Forgiven
Best Credit Card for Medical Expenses
Are Medical Bills Tax Deductible
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