How to Enlist the Media to Help With Your Bogus Medical Bill

Daniel Hill got billed $16,963 for two sleep studies. He got ignored for a year until a journalist took on the story.

Daniel Hill first messaged me on Twitter a year ago. 

The 43-year-old was getting overcharged for two sleep studies he’d had in 2020 at JFK Medical Center in Edison, New Jersey. His cut-rate insurance plan had pre-approved the tests and then not covered them, sticking him with the bill. An outrageously priced bill.  

The hospital bills, for two tests, came to $15,589. That’s more like what you’d pay for a good used car than two sleep studies. 

It gets even worse. The bills got sent to collections. The collections agency inflated the bill to $16,963.85, with no explanation for the increase.

Here’s the good news. Daniel was reading my book, “Never Pay the First Bill: And Other Ways to Fight the Health Care System and Win,” and reached out for assistance. Getting educated is a key step toward patient empowerment. 

Daniel followed the steps I lay out in the book and my Never Pay Pathway health literacy videos, which are based on the book. He got the billing codes and checked for fair prices on HealthcareBluebook.com and FairHealthConsumer.org. The sites showed that the price should have been about $1,300 for each test, he said. He was being charged about seven times the market rate.  

Daniel and I traded dozens of Twitter messages and talked through his options on the phone. Sometimes these David vs Goliath battles get resolved easily. But often they require pivots and persistence on the part of the patient. 

Daniel tried a lot of things. He called the hospital and the debt collectors to try and persuade them. Didn’t get anywhere. He wrote a well-researched letter (I helped him with it) and sent it to the hospital and its leaders. He got no response. He asked to speak to a supervisor and they promised him the supervisor would call him back. Crickets. He tried finding an attorney to help. Too expensive. He consulted with companies that negotiate medical bills. Also too expensive. This went on for months. 

Small claims court could have been a good option for Daniel, I believe, but it felt overwhelming and confusing to him. So he followed another tip I recommend in my book: He reached out to journalists, to see if he could get media attention to the story. He tried several and finally it worked! He got the attention of the editor of Peste, a magazine of health journalism, advocacy and the arts. 

I spent two decades as a full-time journalist and it always amazed me the way health care power players respond when the media calls. They wilt. A patient can battle an unfair medical bill for a year, as Daniel did, and when the media gets involved the bill gets resolved immediately. Why is this? I’ve come to believe that hospitals and others care more about their image than they do the reality of how they treat patients. It seems that they want to avoid being held accountable for their behavior. Going to the media hits them where it hurts.    

Here’s another way of looking at it. We all respond to incentives. Thus, you need to give whoever is sending you the bogus medical bill the incentive they need to do the right thing. That incentive might be showing them evidence that the bill is out of line while asking for a discount. It might include escalating the situation to a supervisor, hospital executive or board member. It could include tagging them on social media posts, complaining to regulators, or suing them in small claims court. Or, in Daniel’s case, getting a reporter involved. The key is to get their attention and help them see that it’s in their best interests to treat you fairly. 

The media has a strong appetite for these stories. In Daniel’s case, the journalist involved, Jason Silverstein, examined his records. He also had Daniel sign a HIPAA waiver form so the hospital would have permission under patient privacy laws to share its side of the story. You can guess what happened. Silverstein contacted the hospital and about a week later Daniel got a call from a customer service supervisor for the facility. The hospital offered to lower the bill to $908.95 per sleep study. Daniel told them he deserved a two-for-one discount for all the hassle and for ignoring his calls. The hospital agreed. He paid $905.96. For more details, check out Silverstein’s story in Peste. 

Daniel’s glad the bill got resolved in a fair way, but not happy that it took a call from a journalist to be treated with decency. “I am upset about that,” he told me. “If I have such a large bill and you ignore me, despite me even calling and trying to resolve it, then what are we even doing here?”

Daniel’s right. It’s not fair. It’s not respectful. It’s outrageous for a hospital to overcharge a patient and then ignore him when he insists on fairness. And it happens every day to patients across the country.

If you need to get a journalist’s attention, here's some advice, based on Daniel’s experience and my own decades in the media.

1. Approach the right journalist.

You’ll have the best luck with a reporter who has already demonstrated interest in these issues. Reach out to journalists who have written about health care or medical billing problems. Talk to consumer watchdogs who love to stand up for the little guy. 

2. Know your facts.

Follow the steps I lay out in “Never Pay the First Bill” and my “Never Pay Pathway” videos to verify how much you’re being overcharged. I also provide an overview in this column. The journalist you’re courting needs to see that you have your facts straight and that the problem can be quantified and verified. Journalists are also busy and working under deadlines, so it’s helpful if you’re organized and have done some of the groundwork for them. 

3. Email a brief overview.

Put your story in writing, with dates, names of hospitals, titles of providers and other information. Pinpoint the precise nature of the harm. If you can’t get a reporter’s attention via email, try tagging them online or sending them a direct message on Twitter. 

4. Be willing to go on the record.

The journalist will need to use your name in the story. You’ll also need to waive your HIPAA privacy rights so the hospital or whoever is billing you can respond to the reporter. 

5. Make sure you have your records.

It’s your legal right to have all your medical and billing records, including an itemized bill with the billing codes. Providing those to the journalist will allow the reporter to verify that your story is legit. 

Reporters are busy so it can be difficult to get their attention. And there are too many stories for them to cover them all, so don’t be offended if they can’t cover yours.

The most important knowledge, Daniel said, was knowing he was right. He could see that from following the steps I lay out in my book and videos. That gave him the conviction to persist and find new avenues to overcome the bogus bill. “You can push back,” he said.

Employers - Let’s Work Together to Equip Your Employees

I love to see working Americans have their mindset flipped by effective health literacy education. Our health care system isn’t broken. It was designed this way. It’s no accident that employers and working Americans keep paying more than they should for health care. But employees are not powerless.

Does your organization sponsor health benefits for your employees? Want to see them get equipped to be savvy health care consumers? I’m looking for bold employers to equip their employees with my Never Pay Pathway health literacy videos. They’re based on my book, Never Pay the First Bill, and the knowledge will transform the way your employees engage the health care system.

The videos are an ENGAGING resource that will save money for your employees and their families - and your health plan. Let’s stop overpaying for our health care, shall we? Email me at neverpay@marshallallen.com for more information.