With medical collection activity on the rise, it is possible that a hospital, clinic or healthcare provider could come after you to pay off healthcare bills incurred by your former spouse.
In fact, in many states, health care providers use common law doctrines to force spouses of patients to pay outstanding medical debts.
Even if you don't live in a common law state, many states consider a wife or husband responsible for a spouse's medical bills, provided the two were living together when the medical bills were generated. That's the case in New Jersey, where I live. Here, the Supreme Court has ruled that both spouses are liable for the "necessary" expenses incurred by the other while living together; and medical services are considered "necessaries."
Fortunately, there are some efforts underway to safeguard spouses (and ex-spouses) when a wife or husband has racked up big medical bills. For example, many consumer protection agencies advocate exempting spouses from medical debts altogether.
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10 Things Your Pharmacist Won't Tell You
It seems that doctors are prescribing a lot more medication than they used to. In 2007 pharmacists filled 3.8 billion prescriptions, up from 3.3 billion in 2002. Click through our gallery to see SmartMoney's 10 things your pharmacist won't tell you.
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10 Things Your Pharmacist Wont Tell You
It seems that doctors are prescribing a lot more medication than they used to. In 2007 pharmacists filled 3.8 billion prescriptions, up from 3.3 billion in 2002. Click through our gallery to see SmartMoney's 10 things your pharmacist won't tell you.
10 Things Your Pharmacist Wont Tell You
1. "I'm overworked and stressed out . . ."
It seems that doctors are prescribing a lot more medication than they used to. In 2007 pharmacists filled 3.8 billion prescriptions, up from 3.3 billion in 2002. Michael Negrete, CEO of the Pharmacy Foundation of California, says that some physicians may actually be prescribing drugs unnecessarily, say for the flu. "It's easier and quicker than explaining to a patient why they don't need an antibiotic," Negrete says.
10 Things Your Pharmacist Wont Tell You
2. ". . . .which means I'm more error-prone."
At first it was a bit of a mystery: When Daniel Hawkins of Danville, Calif., took the penicillin he was prescribed, he became violently ill. But days later it was discovered that he had mistakenly been given Zoloft, an antidepressant. It may sound like an isolated incident, but it happens all the time. In California alone, there were 433 complaints of prescription error filed with the state Pharmacy Board in 2007. Those inside the pharmacy industry blame such mix-ups on long hours, tough working conditions, and a shortage of qualified personnel.
10 Things Your Pharmacist Wont Tell You
3. "I don't understand all my merchandise."
With so many people taking an interest in alternative medicine these days, most pharmacies sell profitable herbal remedies right at the prescription counter. This setup encourages customers to make impulsive herbal purchases while picking up their prescriptions. But many pharmacists are woefully uninformed about the complications that can develop when various drugs get taken in tandem. Even if your druggist sees you purchasing, say, the memory enhancer ginkgo biloba as you pick up a prescription for the blood thinner Coumadin, studies have shown that he may fail to recognize that the two taken together increase your risk of internal bleeding and stroke.
10 Things Your Pharmacist Wont Tell You
4. "My drug-swapping could make you sick."
Pharmacists will sometimes switch up a patient's medication from one manufacturer's make to another without ever asking permission. And most of the time, it's fine. But there are times when this practice can be dangerous, particularly in the case of epilepsy patients and some people on thyroid or heart medication.
10 Things Your Pharmacist Wont Tell You
5. "Frankly, your private records aren't all that private."
While the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), first enacted by Congress in 1996, has helped to better protect patients' privacy over the years by ushering in a host of confidentiality laws, there are still some ways that information about your health and medication history can get disseminated without your knowledge. For example, drug companies are still paying pharmacists to access customers' personal information for consumer marketing so that they can send out refill reminders or information about a new drug brand to patients.
10 Things Your Pharmacist Wont Tell You
6. "I can be pretty sneaky sometimes."
It's certainly not true of all pharmacists, but some have been known to resort to underhanded tricks in order to beef up their profit margins. Jim Sheehan, an associate U.S. attorney based in Philadelphia, experienced this firsthand when he was on vacation in Florida and came down with strep throat. A local pharmacist there inspected Sheehan's prescription for antibiotics from a nearby urgent-care center and offered the following choice: Pay cash for the medicine and get it immediately, or run it through Sheehan's insurance company and wait half an hour since he was from out of state.
10 Things Your Pharmacist Wont Tell You
7. "Paying out-of-pocket? The price of your prescription just went up."
The pharmacy business should be all about uniformity. Go from drugstore to drugstore, and your prescription should have the same name, dosage, and instructions for use. But that's not always the case when it comes to the cost of medication: A recent comparison of pharmacies found little consistency in the price of prescriptions. Why? There are differences in the cost of doing business -- rents vary, as do other fixed expenses.
10 Things Your Pharmacist Wont Tell You
8. "This medication is stale."
Most people don't think that underworld crime figures can come between them and their Celebrex. Well, they haven't heard of Anthony "Tony Ripe" Civella. In 1991 Civella was convicted of buying $1 million worth of discounted drugs that were supposed to go to nursing homes -- where large quantities of medication are purchased at bulk prices and used quickly -- but instead found their way to retail pharmacies (at a tidy profit for Tony Ripe). The problem is called "drug diversion." In a typical case, crooked druggists buy diverted medication at reduced prices and in quantities far bigger than they're legally allowed to handle; by the time the last of the shipment reaches consumers, the pills are long out of date.
10 Things Your Pharmacist Wont Tell You
9. "I don't just sell drugs. I make them."
Say your five-year-old needs a medication that comes only in pill form. If you think he'll do better with a liquid, you can ask your pharmacist to make the conversion himself -- right there at the store. It's called "compounding" -- a traditional practice in which pharmacies combine, mix, or alter ingredients to create unique medications that meet specific needs of a patient -- and when done right, it's perfectly safe. But some pharmacists compound drugs that already exist -- such as injectable morphine or hormonereplacement- therapy meds, for example -- because it's cheaper.
10 Things Your Pharmacist Wont Tell You
What Your Former Spouse Should Do
In the meantime, if you find yourself in a situation where an ex has large medical expenses, protect yourself by talking to your former spouse (if that's possible) and encouraging him or her to set up a repayment plan for their medical debt. Suggest that he or she review their medical bills closely to make sure they weren't overcharged or double-billed for anything. And share with him or her the resources listed below.
Ultimately, of course, what your ex-spouse does or does not do is out of your control. But here's what you can control.
How to Protect Yourself
First off, keep close tabs on your own credit files. Signing up for a good credit monitoring service is a way to do this. (I use credit monitoring from
FreeCreditReport.com and
myFICO.com).
Unpaid medical bills don't usually appear in your credit reports. But if they go into collections, then those accounts will be listed in your Equifax, Experian and TransUnion credit files. So be especially watchful for any collection accounts that may pop up in the future that you might have to dispute. The Federal Reserve reports that more than 50% of collection records and 20% of lawsuits that appear on credit reports are due to medical debts.
Aside from monitoring your credit, you should contact your health insurance company to inquire about any medical invoices that they didn't pay if your ex was covered on your plan. Perhaps there was an oversight, a missing claims form, or simply some information that you can supply that would cause the insurer to cover some of the outstanding health care bills.
Know the Worst-Case Scenario
Also, examine any of your ex's health care bills you may have copies of to see if there were clauses or fine print that obligated you or your ex (or both of you) to pay whatever was not covered by insurance. Sometimes, health care providers will spell out what recourse they may pursue in the event of non-payment.
Aside from damaging your credit will collections, judgments or lawsuits, health care providers may try to garnish wages, seize assets or put a lien against your home. These are extreme tactics, and will certainly not be used in every case. But you need to be aware of all possibilities.
In the end, how aggressively a health care provider pursues a debt will largely depend on the laws in your state, the amount of debt owed, and the extent to which the provider thinks they can shake money out of you or your ex spouse.
Resources for More Help
Lastly, if you do get socked with your former spouse's medical bills in the future, reach out to a variety of consumer organizations that can help you with this issue. Some groups that have fought wrongful medical billing practices include:
Access Project
http://www.accessproject.org
Bill Advocates
http://www.billadvocates.com
Consumers Union
http://www.consumersunion.org
Hospital Debt Justice
http://www.hospitaldebtjustice.org
National Consumer Law Center
http://www.consumerlaw.org
Lynnette Khalfani-Cox, an award-winning financial news journalist and former Wall Street Journal reporter for CNBC, has also been featured in top newspapers including the Washington Post, USA Today, and the New York Times, as well as magazines ranging from Essence and Redbook to Black Enterprise and Smart Money. Check out her New York Times bestseller,
'Zero Debt: The Ultimate Guide to Financial Freedom.'
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Comments: (2)
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By: Cherry on 4/10/2010 5:03AM
It is really important for us to take care of our health. The cost of health care is going through the roof, and it's really no wonder that there's a lot of talk about health care reform. Medical expenses and medical payments often send people sprinting for payday loans, and are involved if not the cause of upwards of 60% or a lot more bankruptcies. The expense of medical insurance is increasing for people and worse, for business employers, and one wonders just what is causing all this. If there is one thing that is for sure, if health care reform doesn't address the cause behind the rise in costs, simply throwing money at it is only going to make things worse.
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By: meanvee on 4/11/2010 1:05AM
I'd sure hate to have to pay medical bills for a ex spouse who's with another dude, won't that be a slap in the face.
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