medical bills

After decades of unchecked mergers, health care is the land of giants, with huge medical systems monopolizing care in many cities, states, and even whole regions of the country.

The Jane and Daniel Och Family Foundation donated to RIP Medical Debt, a nonprofit that buys unpaid hospital bills in bulk at a reduced rate and pays them off.

Medicare was supposed to cover the entire cost of his procedure. But the anesthesia provider failed to file its claims in a timely manner and billed the patient instead.

One North Carolina family's six-figure medical bill came from a state hospital. The attorney general, who is running for governor and says he's against high medical costs, tried to collect the debt.

Sometimes a simple phone call clears up a problem. Other times, reinforcements are necessary. Debt experts say patients should attack medical bills with a plan. Here are key steps to take.

After emergency surgery, an American expatriate now carries the baggage of a five-figure bill. Costs for medical care in the U.S. can be two to three times the rates in other developed countries.

Doctors have no national standards on when to order urine tests to check whether adult ADHD patients are properly taking their medication. Some patients are subjected to much more frequent testing than others.

When health bills aren't legible — via large-print, Braille or other adaptive technology — blind patients can't know what they owe, and are too often sent to debt collections, an investigation finds.

Lupron, a drug patented half a century ago, treats advanced prostate cancer. It costs a few hundred dollars in the U.K. — so why are U.S. hospitals charging so much more to administer it?

A New York woman seeking to end a dangerous ectopic pregnancy in a fallopian tube finds the procedure more complicated and expensive than expected — even in a state with liberal abortion laws.