What do you do if you have a serious Medical Crisis after you have filed BK 7?

[slvnomore]

Thank you for you kind replys,
i appreciate you sharing your story of strength and hope.

Here are my Scariest concerns about filing a no asset BK7. 2 people are sick in my family.

1) what if you have a serious expensive medical crisis, after you have aready filed? you cant Bk. you already dropped your nuke. trapped. sick. scary.

2) Even if you have medical insurance, the deductable and out of pocket is thousands.
What are your REAL not smartass options if you get seriously ill and you already filed BK 7?

3) this is not hypothetical, my GF med bills are already 175K. It is crushing us both.

[AngelinaCat]

Have you and GF filed BK jointly? If not, then you and she needs to ride it out as long as possible, then the GF needs to file BK.

Otherwise, unless you dismiss your CH7, and refile later on, you are pretty much 'cooked'. And you really don't have a lot of options with the CH7, because once you file, the CH7 takes on a life of it's own.

[LadyInTheRed]

Your girlfriend can file BK when it is right for her.

Is the second person in your family your dependent?

As far as your fear of getting sick yourself and incurring medical bills, if you get sick after you file BK, you'll do what you can about the debt. If by the time you can file BK again you still have significant debt you can't pay, you can file again.

People who are already ill (or have dependents who are ill) should consider delaying filing BK until they have recovered. But, if you are healthy, decide whether to file based on your current situation. What-ifs will drive you mad and are not a good basis for making a decision.

[tobee43]

we had over 200k in medical bills when we filed. however, after that i'm certain this year alone was over 1 million dollars...but we were lucky because my other half then had medicare which his secondary picked up the rest since it has a million cap on it and we exceeded that prior to our bk. we understand now with obama care insurance companies can no longer cap the amount.

if you can't afford the care you may want to look at state health programs much like "family care" that is what it was called in nj. see if you can talk to a social worker from the hospital she frequents...they hopefully will have some programs open to you.

best of luck, i live with it daily so my heart really goes out to you.

[PublicEnemy]

I'm just learing about BK so I could be wrong about this but as I understand it even though you can't file a CH 7 BK for another 8 years after 4 years you can file a CH 13.

[tobee43]

chapter 13 Bankruptcy can be filed at anytime after receiving a discharge from a prior Chapter 7. the problem is, you must wait a minimum of four years to FILE Chapter 13 after your previous FILING of Chapter 7 to receive a discharge.

"The rule to this is YOU MUST WAIT FOUR YEARS BETWEEN FILINGS. The rule is the four years has to be from FILING DATE TO FILING DATE. Not discharge to filing or discharge to discharge. Hopefully, this makes sense.

Say you filed for Chapter 7 on January 01, 2011, you would have to wait until January 01, 2015 to file Chapter 13 and receive a discharge. Normally after filing Chapter 7 bankruptcy you would receive a discharge between three to six months after filing. Normally, a Chapter 13 bankruptcy would receive a discharge after the debtors complete the 3-5 year payment plan to the Trustee."

[slvnomore]

I really appreciate all the thoughtful replys. It is the single most scary thought that is preventing me from filing BK.

I am worse off than she is financially but she is sicker and heading there. Even with insurance 60% whole file bk are because of medical

issues. Has anyone found any solution to what you so about a big medical bill after you file bk and can't? I am even trying to think of a way to settle with the CC as i am so afraid to BK and then have a medical crisis. How did you handle the stress? did you find any solutions? thanks so much.

[slvnomore]

What-ifs will drive you mad and are not a good basis for making a decision. - GOOD ADVICE! but what if a what if can kill you? ; )

[TRfromillino]

I guess I can rather relate to your situation even if I can't solve it for you. In late 1999, my late husband had a horrible farm accident which in itself should have taken his life. Being a very strong man, he made it thru the initial ambulance ride and helicopter ride to the trauma center. He survived by the grace of God and the surgeon who kept him with us. The initial surgery kept him going and they told us that night that he also had cancer. Horrible nightmare. He survived all of that and we moved on and he told me one day we were going to have to file bankruptcy. Our amassed farm debt and medical debt was beyond belief for me, I had no idea. We filed within 3 months of the initial accident covering all the farm debt and medical debt. He went on to have 10 more major repair surgeries, chemotheropy and radiation after the bankruptcy until finally in 2003 we lost him. We fought with the IRS negotiating for all of those years and finally settled on a sum. Our insurance covered quite a bit of what he went thru, but I was left with what they called 'reasonable and customary' fees. I was responsible for those. The "Marriage Act" ya know. I learned many things in those years. One, you CAN go to your representatives and senators and get them to help you. Hospitals WILL work with you. If you need to get out from underneath, do it. You need to spend what time you have with your loved one, loving them. Not worrying about what will happen when they're gone. I'm currently going thru my own bankruptcy right now, cuz it's hard times for me right now, but when I go that 341 meeting in April? Well at least I know I'm not going to the funeral home to make plans to bury someone. Do it.

[slvnomore]

I am so sorry you went though all that. That is beyond words. I have lost 13 people in 4 years and am doing my best to care for 2 that are ill. I so appreciate your thoughtful, heartfelt answer. You have given me better information than anyone and I am grateful. ; )

[TRfromillino]

No, you got a lot of good advice, just factual. Mine was experienced based and emotional. Today would have been my husbands 58th birthday. However, you have to do what needs doing. Go talk to a great attorney, tell him/her what's going on and they will give you the answers you need. Good luck!

[LadyInTheRed]

What-ifs will drive you mad and are not a good basis for making a decision. - GOOD ADVICE! but what if a what if can kill you? ; )

Making a decion to file BK or not file BK is not going to kill you. You need to make a decision based on your own current financial and health condition.

You can only react to what happens in the future when it happens. I know that having many people close to you suffer from major illness is difficult. Not only because of your concern for your loved ones and daily challenges in providing care, but also because you become aware of how quickly a downturn in your health can change your life. It is good to think about how you will handle all the issues that will come up if you get sick. Perhaps it will encourage you to insure yourself or build a savings. But, delaying filing BK because you may get sick within 7 years of filing doesn't make any sense. What if your indecision delays your BK filing for a year at which point you decide you have no choice. Then 6 years after filing, you get sick and incur huge medical debt? You will have another year before you can file Chap 7. If you had filed a year earlier, you could file Chap 7 immediately.

[slvnomore]

Thank you for your thoughtful reply. The way you were writing sounds exactly like the voices in my head ! ; ) especially.

"I know that having many people close to you suffer from major illness is difficult. Not only because of your concern for your loved ones and daily challenges in providing care, but also because you become aware of how quickly a downturn in your health can change your life"

Thank you so much for understanding. I never even thought of the what ifs going the other way!
That being said, it makes sense to have a rational idea of solutions in the interim after BK. Here are the ones i have heard mentioned so far:

I like your idea of building a health savings account.
perhaps we can make a list of possible PRACTICAL solutions for all of us facing this after BK.

1) build a health savings account to cover the deductable and out of pocket if you have insurance.
2) go on medicaid
3) go to the emergency room

What are some other possible solutions?

[bcohen]

If you have a medical emergency after you've already filed BK, you do what millions of people do: collection-proof yourself and try to negotiate with the hospitals/debt collectors.

[AngelinaCat]

slvnomore, I think you have your answer. ^^^Please see above.^^^ And don't reply back that we are being smart-a****d about answering you.

In my case: we set up an HSA account for me in 2009. I had been insured with the FT job that left me on September 30, 2007. At that point I entered into 18 months of COBRA coverage. I had to complete that before I could even think about getting insurance for myself--because I have pre-existing conditions. I had to roll onto BCBS because that was my prior insurance. No other Insurance would touch me because of the pre-existing conditions.

So I am self-insured because I am not yet 65, and do not qualify for Medicare. I have an extremely high deductible: $3500.00 per year, so that I can afford to pay the monthly premium of $389.00 per month. It has gone up twice since I signed up in June 2009, due to "implementations of the Affordable Health Care Act [aka ObamaCare]". When it goes up again this June, I will either have to go to a higher deductible with less coverage, or skip health care insurance entirely, because we cannot afford it.

I am only 60 years old.

Now, I said I have an HSA. Yes, I do. Fortunately we have a retirement fund that allows us to be able to send money to this account. All other moneys in this fund goes for yearly bills such as property taxes, household insurance, other bills.

I do not know offhand what the requirements are for trying to start an HSA up with just a few dollars put in every month. I don't believe you can do it. I do know that one thing you cannot do is try to pay your health insurance with it. It is intended for co-pays and other things not covered.

Last January 2012, 'Hub and I went north to visit his brother, and then further north to Dayton Ohio, for his old stomping ground as an NCR employee. While there, I slipped on some icy snow and landed flat on my back between the shoulder blades, knocking the wind out of me and causing a whole heap of pain.

As a spinal fusion person, we were terrified that I had damaged myself in that regard. So off to the Miami Valley Hospital we went where I was x-rayed and CT-scanned. I was okay, and not really hurt, but the hospital bill was more than $3,000, and did NOT include the doctors and technicians. But the total was well more than 3K, and we are only able to contribute 4K each year.

So we negotiated with the hospital and the doctors, and I have finally been able to pay off everyone just a few days ago.

So, you just do what you have to do. And each and everyone's situation is different.