Pedagogical Re-Animator

don’t just pay it. do not automatically pay the hospital bill when you receive it. call your health insurance provider and POLITELY say, “excuse me, i just received a bill for $1200 for my hospital visit/ER visit/etc., is that the correct amount i’m supposed to pay?” because hospitals bill you before your health insurance and they will take your money no matter how the amount due may change based on your health insurance looking at it. 90% of the time, if your health insurance is in any way involved in the payment of that bill, you do not have to pay as much as the hospital is billing you for. call your health insurance provider first, and POLITELY request clarification, always remember that the person you are talking to is human and this is just their job, and then you will very likely find out you actually only owe $500.

Also, it is important [for people receiving medical care in the USA] to carefully read all of the items on the medical bill and look for errors and overcharges. I know that the normal feelings of avoidance and dread can make it hard to look at scary hospital bills, and that’s okay! But as the OP mentions, private orgs like hospitals don’t monitor overpayment of bills - they are motivated to charge you extra - and it is basically impossible to get your money back. Read the bill carefully and make sure that the charges are correct, using the links below for help if you need. If they haven’t sent you an itemized list, you can ask for one. Sometimes you will be charged extra for items or treatment you didn’t receive. Most people don’t know that you can dispute medical bills! But in 2009, Consumer Reports stated that 8 out of 10 medical bills scrutinized by a watchdog had errors, and generally you are not obligated to pay for someone else’s error.

You may be charged for using medication that you actually brought into the hospital with you - that’s easy to dispute! You may be charged for the consumables used during your stay such as sheets, gloves, gowns, etc - the hospital should actually cover that under its running budget. You may be charged for a brand name drug if the generic was available for cheaper - the links below explain how and when you can dispute this. You may be charged a surprisingly expensive “oral administration fee” (where a nurse puts pills for you to take in a little clean paper cup and then hands it to you) but that’s worth disputing if you were actually able to take the pill out of a bottle and put it in your own mouth. And so on.

8 Things You Should Know About Challenging a Medical Bill (FORBES) (includes links to sites that help you calculate how much a procedure/treatment usually costs in your area, if the costs seem super high)

7 Tips for Fighting and Paying A Huge Medical Bill (FORBES) This explains briefly how to negotiate costs, and payment plans.

10 Common Medical Billing Overcharges You Can Prevent (Bill Advocates) A breakdown of errors and overcharges to double check.

Resumes are outdated. It is pretty near impossible to see the human behind the text and what their full potential is as an employee. My stomach turns every time I work on my resume, and I do not have adequate words to describe what I feel when I try to write a CV. I hope one day society evolves into a better interview process. How many years and revisions have I done to little positive outcome? I am not a dumb person. I feel like a circle trying to fit through a square that is too small. I have never worked a job in which I felt like my genuine self and it is that pretending that deprives the soul and slowly eats away at the human being. That is why I say no more office work, certainly no more long-term service gigs of any nature in person (unless it is somehow an exceptionally open, creative gig - but I still have my doubts), and am willing to suffer until I find a remote job. I am done trying to play the system, the system is broken. It wrought havoc on my health, and I did not improve until I removed myself from even “modern” healthcare because there was no healing happening there. I deeply regret the fact I cannot afford to see a holistic dentist because I am positive I am getting scammed and to this day they are still doing harmful practices you end up paying the price for in money and health. But I digress.