Caring for an Elderly Parent (Mom) and Need Help with Medicare Questions

Did your mom sign any of the paperwork when he was in the hospital? If not, then she is not liable for the bill, he is. Since he isn't here, the bill either goes to his estate, or goes away. I know when my husband died, someone tried to give me a hospital bill from months earlier. I didn't sign anything, so they couldn't go after me. Must have decided it wasn't worth it because they didnt' go after his estate either.
Call and ask plenty of questions. If you aren't happy with the answers, ask to speak to a supervisor. Never take no for an answer from someone who can't say yes.
R.

What was the hospital bill for, exactly? I mean was it for the actual stay, or for meds and stuff. I thought all hospital stays, the entire bill, was covered by medicare. Did you get a bill from the hospital or from medicare?

Now if the hospitals run out of the solution to the elderly's problems they are transferring them to Nursing homes or rehab centers. My mother-in-law went through the gamut of all their remedies and they said there was no hope for her, so they transferred her to a nursing home on Saturday. She died four days later. They kept sending her a bill for $4000.00 from the nursing home. For Four days! That was ridiculous! After a year we were still getting her bill, but with her name on it. We knew what it was so did not open it, and sent it back saying Return Address: Heaven. We finally are not getting anymore bills.

They can send the bill. Often it seems to take the insurance carriers and secondary insurance carriers approximately that long to pay their share of the claims. There is a statute of limitations, veries from state to state. I received several bills of this type two years after my husband passed away, some of what was included were invoices on my children from three years prior. I contacted the insurance carriers who had to go back through records from years ago to find out if they had even been billed by the physicians/hospitals/etc. for payment. Several times they had not been invoiced for the procedures. The allotted time for billing the insurance companies had long before lapsed. You may find the primary carrier dallied so long in paying their share of the bill the secondary was not billed in the allotted time frame. You can argue the bills. Most times they have all ready been written off by the facility anyway for tax purposes and they are just hounding for additonal payment.

My next question becomes, was the estate settled? If so then the notice was published in the papers, etc., and if the bills were not received within a few weeks or months (check with an attorney for the actual time frame) then while they can attempt to bill her she is not legally responsible for the bill.

I am a medical biller. This can get kind of complicated. First you need to determine if this is the first bill your Mother has ever recieved. Then you need to figure out why the facility is billing your mother basically why Medicare denied the claim.
Once you figure that out you can move forward.
Call Medicare and see when they first recieved this claim for processing and ask for the chain of claim events. Medicare will help you. The bottom line is that the bill is over two years old. This is the rule of thumb area where most claims get written off. Chances are a claim that old that you are not aware their has been a problem with means someone in billing dropped the ball. And finally the patient is deceased. Most medical facilities will write off a charge with proof of a death certificate. If you go through everything and it is determined you are responsibile ask them to write off because patient is deceased. Don't be afraid to ask for the write off. Speak to managers only.