On the evening of January 18, 2009, I took my wife to he hospital for a really bad migraine headache. She had the headache for two days, could not keep food down - it was really bad.

I called St. Francis, er information desk, and asked if they had a walk-in clinic. They advised they did, until 9:00 pm in the evening. After that it would be considered a regular ER visit.
I asked the cost and was told it was whatever your insurance copay is. Mine is $30.00.

So, we went, arrived between 6:30-7:00 pm and left around 8:15-8:30 pm. A few weeks later, we received a bill for $822.29. We questioned it, advised of all the information I received the night we went in, regarding the walk-in and only have to pay the insurance co-pay, but it did no good.

After some time trying to get the hospital to listen, my wife started making payments. They called now and then trying to get us to pay certain amounts per month. Once we started making payments, we paid the following payments: $88.79, and four $50.00 payments. My insurance paid $133.50. The total paid is $422.29.

We received a collection letter last week advising we owed $485.37 as they added interest and late charges.?? My wife spoke with the collection agency, a representative today, and they advised if we paid it in full, by the end of the month, it would not hit our credit rating negatively.

I have several issues with this:

The hospital told us it would be considered a walk-in visit and co-pay only.

We tried to work something out with the hospital, after learning they would not review the bill and our complaints, but they would not consider.

The credit agency rep told my wife, when she asked how do they expect people to pay this in full and that we were already making payments, she told my wife that the hospital saw we had available credit on a credit card and expected us to pay it in full on a credit card.

Is it ethical and legal for them to look at this information without our permission?


We are trying to pay credit cards off.

We are also making monthly payments on my son, he had a tumor removed in April of this year. Our insurance makes us pay two full deductibles per year and ours is $5000.00 per person. So, we are paying the full $5000.00 on him and making monthly payments. That hospital, Barnes - St. Louis, MO, is very good to work with and is accepting monthly payments with no interest.

We are trying to take care of this as reasonably as possible. If you could please review our complaint and contact the hospital and collection agency on our behalf, I would greatly appreciate it.