Advise on medical debt
Anyone foreign student opt H1 etc. who has medical debt experience mind sharing? I am on opt stem have 40k medical debt not covered by insurance. Should I just forget about it and let it hit my credit score. Now they're about to go collection. I'm uncertain about my future in US and might go back my home country. I think I will take my hard earned money with me instead of paying them and I couldn't pay them all at once anyway.
Call the hospital right way and ask them for any discount on the debt. They usually have a leeway of about 10-20% and then tell them you want to get onto a financial plan to pay off the debt and choose 100$ a month hopefully you can adjust your savings accordingly. Not worth it to let it go to collections I know you are still pondering over your future here but you never know what the future holds for you. So good luck :)
40k, they’ll find you in another country.
Negotiate and pay or GTFO of this country. Once I was able to drop the cost of a medical service from $3500 to $400.
Yeah reject from eBay is right. Call the hospital ask that you are unable to pay. That way you can get a discount and get on a plan
Pay it or negotiate asap. They won't just harm your credit they will take the money and or garnish your wages with penalties. You cannot avoid it short of bankruptcy.
You gotta talk with a social worker in the hospital. Since you are a student, you would qualify for low income and they can use the charity fund for the hospital bill. For the lab bill and doctors fee, call their office and explain your situation. They will slash the price to more than a half. The bill you get initially is not the money they expect to receive. Usually insurance companies pay only a half or 2/3 of the bill. For individuals, hospitals offer similar deal. For them, it is better to receive some money than none. Let me tell you my story. I had an insurance but the bill was still a lot when my child was born. Social worker gave me an application form which I submitted. Most of the bill ($25,000$) was hospital bill and they were all covered by the charity. For the lab fees, they offered 20-40% discount. This is even after using insurance (some were uncovered). The total I paid was around $600.
US medical billing = write any number on CMS 1500. Try to negotiate down steeply, tell them you will just give up on them otherwise.
You should try to renegotiate the bill with the hospital. Tell them you don't have the money and sending you to collections won't bring them money.