You may have more leverage than you think. I'm pretty sure in my state (Kansas) your credit rating cannot be dinged for late payment on a medical bill. Used to be the case anyway. It would be handy to know if that was true for you too.
When my father got sick there was a flood of bills. I just sent every creditor $20 a month. I figured they would be happy to get anything since so many people pay nothing. I never made any formal payment plans or arrangments. This worked fine.
Another thing you might do is challenge large bills. I challenged a big bill with several charges, don't remember why, but they ended up adjusting it down more than what I asked for, on different charges than the ones I was objecting to. They could not explain this, just "that's what the reviewers came back with". Give them the opportunity.
You may have more leverage than you think. I'm pretty sure in my state (Kansas) your credit rating cannot be dinged for late payment on a medical bill. Used to be the case anyway. It would be handy to know if that was true for you too.
When my father got sick there was a flood of bills. I just sent every creditor $20 a month. I figured they would be happy to get anything since so many people pay nothing. I never made any formal payment plans or arrangments. This worked fine.
Another thing you might do is challenge large bills. I challenged a big bill with several charges, don't remember why, but they ended up adjusting it down more than what I asked for, on different charges than the ones I was objecting to. They could not explain this, just "that's what the reviewers came back with". Give them the opportunity.