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In 2024, our nationwide team of gumshoes set out to answer your most pressing questions about medical bills, such as: Can free preventive care really come with add-on bills for items like surgical trays? Or, why does it cost so much to treat a rattlesnake bite? Or, if it’s called an urgent care emergency center, which is it?
Affording medical care continues to be among the top health concerns facing Americans today. In the seventh year of KFF Health News’ “Bill of the Month” series, readers shared their most perplexing, vexing, and downright expensive medical bills and asked us to help figure out what happened. Our reporters analyzed $800,000 in charges, including more than $370,000 owed by 12 patients and their families.
This year, we met several patients who fought back.
Caitlyn Mai of Oklahoma City was preapproved for a hearing implant, yet for months she was still hounded by notices saying she owed $139,000.
To resolve the problem, Mai estimated she spent at least 12 hours on the phone doing tasks that typically fall to someone working in a hospital billing department. “I said, ‘I’ve done your job for you — now can you please take it from here?’”
Jamie Holmes of Lynden, Washington, refused to buckle when a surgery center tried to make her pay for two operations after she underwent only one — even after a collection agency sued her.
She showed up at two court hearings and explained her side. “I just got stonewalled so badly. They treated me like an idiot,” she told “Bill of the Month.” “If they’re going to be petty to me, I’m willing to be petty right back.”
As always, we reached out to medical billing experts for their takeaways and learned that these patients had the right idea.
“You know what? It pays to be stubborn in situations like this,” said Berneta Haynes, a senior attorney for the National Consumer Law Center who reviewed Holmes’ bill for KFF Health News.
From our curious, tireless “Bill of the Month” team, happy holidays — and, when in doubt, don’t pay the bill.
Health providers may bill however they choose — including in ways that could leave patients with unexpected bills for “free” care. Routine preventive care saddled an Illinois couple with his-and-her bills for “surgical trays.”
Sky-high bills from air-ambulance providers have sparked complaints and federal action in recent years. But a rural Tennessee resident fell through the cracks of billing protections — and a single helicopter ride could cost much of her estate’s value.
There are legal safeguards to protect patients from big bills like out-of-network air-ambulance rides. But insurers may not pay if they decide the ride wasn’t medically necessary.
Agreeing to an out-of-network doctor’s own financial policy — which generally protects their ability to get paid and may be littered with confusing insurance and legal jargon — can create a binding contract that leaves a patient owing.
A man from Michigan was evacuated from a cruise ship after having seizures. First, he drained his bank account to pay his medical bills.
Suffering stomach pain, a Dallas man visited his local urgent care clinic — or so he thought, until he got a bill 10 times what he’d expected.
Even when patients double-check that their care is covered by insurance, health providers often send them bills as they haggle with insurers over reimbursement, which can last for months. It’s stressful and annoying — but legal.
A collection agency sought court authority to garnish a patient’s wages to pay a disputed surgery bill. But after the patient showed up in court to argue the bill was bogus, the judge declined to let the bill collector seize her money.
An Alabama teen was told he needed surgery for debilitating hip pain. But his family’s insurer denied coverage for the procedure, which lacked a medical billing code. Expected to pay more than $7,000, his father charged it to credit cards.
For snakebite victims, antivenom is critical — and costly. It took more than $200,000 worth of antivenom to save one toddler’s life after he was bitten by a rattlesnake.
A mom in Peoria, Illinois, took her 3-year-old to the ER one evening last December. While they were waiting to be seen, the toddler seemed better, so they left without seeing a doctor. Then the bill came.
A man in Chicago with a troubling symptom underwent a common procedure. Then he wanted to know why the hospital charged nearly three times its own cost estimate.
Bill of the Month is a crowdsourced investigation by KFF Health News and The Washington Post’s Well+Being that dissects and explains medical bills. Since 2018, this series has helped many patients and readers get their medical bills reduced, and it has been cited in statehouses, at the U.S. Capitol, and at the White House. Do you have a confusing or outrageous medical bill you want to share? Tell us about it!
