Some patients successfully negotiating medical bills

DENVER - 9NEWS has learned that some insured patients are successfully negotiating with metro area hospitals to lower their medical bills, saving hundreds of dollars.
- Hospitals help uninsured patients

Bob Pusatory, a director at 9NEWS, is just like some of the patients who have contacted our station.

Pusatory started having chest pains while at work and drove himself to the Denver Health Medical Center emergency room. Inside, the doctors told him he was having a heart attack at that very moment, and later an ambulance took him to the University of Colorado Hospital.

"I ended up having five stents put in my heart and was in the hospital for about five days and went home," Pusatory said.

He says he immediately changed his lifestyle, lost 20 pounds, quit smoking and is now much healthier.

Then he started getting his medical bills. Even with a good insurance plan, Pusatory owed about $3,000 to the two hospitals.

"The bills start rolling in, and the bills are scary to look at," Pusatory said.

A few weeks later, Denver Health called him and offered to cut his bill by 20 percent if Pusatory would immediately pay his bill in full with an electronic check. Pusatory negotiated for an even larger discount.

"We ended up settling on a 35 percent discount if I paid right there over the phone," he said.

That deal gave Pusatory an idea - what if the University of Colorado Hospital would also negotiate his bill?

"I'm the kind of person that would ask for a deal for anything. If I go and buy a TV, I always ask for it. You know, 'Hey, will you give me a little extra off?' In a lot of cases it works, and in a lot of cases it doesn't," he said.

In this case, his negotiating worked again, and Pusatory received 20 percent off his second medical bill.

"It saves me, probably, in the long run about $300 to $500 off my responsibility after insurance," he said. "It's very smart to ask, and you have to ask. You're not going to get a discount if you don't ask."

Can these discounts work for everyone? No. In fact, 9NEWS has learned hospitals aren't supposed to offer discounts at all because they are bound by contracts with insurance companies to collect the full bill from patients.

Peg Burnette, the chief financial officer for Denver health, said, "Our standard is that we collect their patient responsibility, and we work with them to do that, but I'd say discounting it should not happen frequently."

Tracy Berry, a senior vice president for Centura Health, agrees.

"We're not allowed to offer discounts, but we do work with these patients on a case by case basis," Berry said.

However, a medical billing expert tells 9NEWS these discounts are fairly common. The expert, who wanted to remain anonymous, said hospitals are sometimes willing to bend the rules in order to collect some payment for outstanding bills.

9NEWS has talked with eight other patients who received similar discounts from medical facilities in the Denver area including Rose Medical Center, Littleton Adventist Hospital, Swedish Medical Center and University Physicians.

Pusatory has been advising other patients in his cardiac rehabilitation group to just call and ask for a discount.

Even if a hospital can't offer a discount on a bill, they can all set up payment plans for patients' bills.

Click here for more information on how medical facilities help uninsured patients.