• Medical bill question - Australian healthcare system
    14 replies, posted
I would post this in fast threads as it is a question thread, but I don't think I would get answers that wouldn't be serious enough for this matter. What happened is that my girlfriend (An American on a working and holiday visa (Subclass 462)) had a fall while ice skating a few weeks after she got here. She received the Ambulance bill of $900, in which she is currently on a payment plan and will be able to pay off. Today we received the hospital bill of nearly $2000, in which there is no possible way for her to pay off, as they will not allow a payment plan either due to the fact she is on a temp visa to Australia. She sadly doesn't have travel insurance, nor can she actually afford the travel insurance now anyway (She knows it was silly, but we can't do much about it now). She didn't sign anything at the hospital or for the ambulance (Neither did I on her behalf) yet they still treated her and kept her in way longer than they needed to. She also didn't want an ambo as she knew they were very expensive and would take a while to get to the ice rink, when I could've just driven her myself. Another few things to note is that the hire ice skates were completely blunt and flat on the bottom (compared to my own skates, which sharpened are an upside down U shape) and the rink management moved her, which twisted her leg slightly and put her in a lot more pain than she originally was in. The medical bill itself has zero information on it other than "Same day charge". Nothing of what they did, when it's due or even the hospital she was at. I'm not asking for donations towards it as I know how Facepunch is towards them, but what could our options be for this. Technically we could hold the ice rink responsible for not sharpening their skates and accidentally twisting her leg, making it much worse than she originally was, but we would only use that as a last resort.
I don't see any way of avoiding the payment to be perfectly honest. Always get travel insurance, you never know whats going to happen to you.
lawsuit is the only option
Sue the ice rink. You're probably not going to be able to avoid paying hospital fees. If they supplied you with faulty equipment(Dull ice skates) and tried moving your girlfriend without any sort of medical experience or knowledge and made her injury worse I'm pretty sure you got a case.
Firstly, is it not a condition of the visa that you have health insurance? Secondly, does she have insurance at home? Some insurance companies will cover you for overseas essential health requirements. Thirdly, speak to Legal Aid for some advice. She probably doesn't have any assets in Australia anyway, so not sure how the Hospital expects to chase it up?
[QUOTE=DogGunn;45668949]Firstly, is it not a condition of the visa that you have health insurance? Secondly, does she have insurance at home? Some insurance companies will cover you for overseas essential health requirements. Thirdly, speak to Legal Aid for some advice. She probably doesn't have any assets in Australia anyway, so not sure how the Hospital expects to chase it up?[/QUOTE] No where did it mention when she applied for the visa that she needed insurance, nor did they even check when she applied or even arrived. She does have medical insurance in the states, but apparently that doesn't work over here. I'll get her to check with her parents when she wakes up. [editline]13th August 2014[/editline] [QUOTE=ejonkou;45667784]Sue the ice rink. You're probably not going to be able to avoid paying hospital fees. If they supplied you with faulty equipment(Dull ice skates) and tried moving your girlfriend without any sort of medical experience or knowledge and made her injury worse I'm pretty sure you got a case.[/QUOTE] I think this might have to be the route we take. We have witnesses (everyone in the group that we were with), so I think to that will be our only option.
Where's she from? My provincial government will cover medical expenses incurred while travelling up to the value of what the same procedure would cost here. I assume this isn't unique. [editline]12th August 2014[/editline] Edit: Just noticed you said "states". I guess your only recourse would be to try and hold the rink responsible for the costs.
You can get an injunction if you're suing preventing the hospital from charging you until your court case is completed. Suing will be expensive if you lose though. You'll probably have to pay cost for the defence and you will have upfront lawyer costs to pay as well.
Its not worth the money to go to a lawsuit. Believe me. Always get travel insurance. Luckily however in Australia hospitals/agencies are generally good at working out long term payment plans for bills, so perhaps over a long period of time it could be payed off. Suing the rink (unless the equipment was really, really bad) is probably not a good idea for a few reasons: - Judges are unlikely to want to create a precedent which would put all 'good Samaritans' at risk (and there is already law protecting people who assist others, so your case is already faulty here). Under Australian civil law good Samaritans are protected from civil suits, unlike the US. - If the guy who moved her has any sort of first aid training whatsoever your case is already screwed. - Cases take time to settle, this case could literally take 1-2 years to reach a result and rack up much larger legal bills. Attorneys are only freely assigned to people who are extremely poor, citizens and either the subject of a civil lawsuit or the accused in a criminal case. - Even if you win a full blown lawsuit, you may not even end up with enough money back to pay much of the bill due to legal fees. My advice to you: - Attempt to sort out a lower bill or a long term payment plan with the hospital in regards to the second bill. (By long term i mean over a period of years). - Do some research, see if you actually have a case against the ice rink and try and figure out whether the person who moved her has first aid training. - Seek legal advice from a probono free legal advice service. Yes, that's right, there are agencies which offer FREE legal advice in Australia! Depending on the state you are in there are more, some are government funded, and sometimes there are even state agencies which will provide free advice. - Do NOT file a full blown civil lawsuit. This will not give you a good result with such a low bill. - As a final avenue/solution, seek arbitration. If you believe you have a case, attempt to get the case arbitrated by a lower level judge (yes most states have systems for this). Generally this speeds up the case by a large margin and you represent yourself with a judge/magistrate presiding over it giving advice, both legal and non-legal, to both sides and the judge tries to reach an agreement. Arbitration results are legally binding like any other court case. The ice skating rink also must agree to arbitrate (after you file for it) and not go for a full case, but they are unlikely to go for a full case as it is cheaper for them to arbitrate. - If all else fails, seek legal aid/probono legal representation to represent you in a full civil case within court. If you are unable to find a probono lawyer to do it for free, seek one of the agencies which provide cheap legal representation and do not charge if you lose the case. Hope I could help :)
[QUOTE=ejonkou;45667784]Sue the ice rink. You're probably not going to be able to avoid paying hospital fees. If they supplied you with faulty equipment(Dull ice skates) and tried moving your girlfriend without any sort of medical experience or knowledge and made her injury worse I'm pretty sure you got a case.[/QUOTE] Ah yes the "American way"
Lawsuit will cost you more money than $2000 and chances are you might not win anyway, putting you even further beyond paying your medical bills.
You are so stupid for not getting travel insurance. Hope you can get this mess sorted.
I wasn't the one who made the decision to, she was. Turns out her health insurance back in the states will refund it once she pays it off, for a small fee of like, $30.
They'll refund the whole thing? That's great. Go with that option.
We only just found that out today from her parents ringing up the insurance company. From what we could see on Google, there wasn't a way to fix it. Once she gets a job she is going to get health insurance here.
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