You Gotta Have Faith-a-Faith-a-Faith-a...

A number of years ago, my father found God, which was a good thing, because it helped him through a divorce, then the death of his son (my brother), the death of his ex-wife (my mother), a number of audits, and most recently, a fall through the roof. But now, as he's healing, we prepare to face the next great challenge: the hospital bill.

We've all heard the terrible stories about the cost of staying at the hospital, and they are completely true. We found out today that my father's total bill would be $113,500 for his stay at Cooper Trauma Medical Center. This includes the nurses, the food, the surgeries, the IVs, the medication, etc, etc. Now, I must admit that this comes in under my $200,000 estimate, but keep in mind that this does NOT include his 4-hour stay at South Jersey Regional, the Rescue Squad ride to South Jersey Regional, the helicopter ride from South Jersey to Cooper, the prescription medicines he's now on, or the follow-up appointments.

But it's at a time like this that my father would tell me to have, "Faith."

This afternoon, we got a call from the hospital, wanting to speak to us about payment options. We already knew that our Home Owners Insurance would not be able to help them, nor would Charity Care as my parents currently make too much money for it. So our expectations weren't high going into the call. However, they simply made us an offer we could not refuse:

$15,000

Yes, you read that correctly. If we're able to make a $1500 down payment, and then the subsequent $200/month following that, they will reduce the bill by 90% due to something called the Medicare Discount!! When I heard this, I really felt like there had to be a catch, whether there be another stipulation, or that they had read us the amount from someone else's account.

But no. It's true. $15,000.

Looks like he may have someone looking out for him up there after all.