Billing

Thank you for choosing St. Vincent Charity Medical Center for your healthcare needs. We are as concerned about your physical health as we are about your financial health and want to minimize or eliminate any concerns you may have regarding payment. You should not have to worry about or be bothered by hospital bills when you need to attend to your health and well-being.

We offer all of the accepted means of payment for your convenience — credit cards, debit cards, check by phone, bank financing, even cash.

We can assist with getting payment from your third-party insurance carrier and can help identify alternative resources if you have no insurance or personal means of payment. We may ask you to complete a financial statement to allow us to help you.

Payment for healthcare services is a complex issue. Services are provided by a number of different individuals and departments. Therefore, please know that you will get a bill from the Hospital, from your doctor, from diagnostic services and others. Please call the phone numbers listed on the bill if you have any questions.

St. Vincent Charity Medical Center's Business Office handles billing and collections for Hospital services. If you have any questions about the details of your bill or insurance payments, please contact our Customer Service Office at 1.800.721.6097.

First Things First

The first step in eliminating any billing issue is to ensure that we have the most current and accurate information about your insurance.

Whenever possible, we will contact you prior to a scheduled date of service to obtain this information. It is imperative that you understand and adhere to all rules governing your health insurance such as primary care physician (PCP) or plan administrator notification prior to receiving service. Emergency visits usually allow for this notification to occur following the visit but limit the amount of time to do so.

If you have been to one of our facilities and could not produce proof of insurance/third-party coverage, it is your responsibility to provide that information as soon as possible afterwards. Until we have that information, your visit will be considered "self-pay" — meaning that we expect full payment from you within 30 days.

Point of Service Payment

When we have your insurance information, we can usually contact the carrier and determine the status of any deductibles and inform you about any coinsurance that you may owe as well as identify services not covered. Ideally, we would have this information when you arrive, but in some cases your status may be determined while you are being seen by a healthcare professional.

In either case, our objective is to provide the opportunity for you to handle your obligation at the point of service. This eliminates any later hassles for you and helps us control costs by eliminating costly billing.

Discharge Clearance

As an inpatient you or a family member will be visited by a Caregiver who will advise you of any balance due and accept payment (if this was not done prior to your date of admission). We prefer to do this prior to your leaving the comfort of your room and avoid having to make a stop to see a financial counselor.

Our goal is for your account to be current and correct when you are discharged so you won't have to worry about it later!

Hospital Bills

As hard as we try, sometimes there are cases where we won't know what your obligation is until some time later and we will have to bill you. This may occur after we have billed your carrier and they respond with an "explanation of benefits," which they will mail to both the Hospital and to you. These amounts that are your obligation might be coinsurance or deductibles, or services may be rejected for non-coverage, failure to comply with your plan rules and various other reasons.

Hospital stays or visits that were registered as self-pay will receive a bill within a few days of discharge. Our billing service will mail only two bills, 14 days apart, requesting that you either contact us to provide additional information, make payment in full or arrange for scheduled payments.

What You Can Do To Help

If you have commercial insurance, we bill them as a convenience to you. If, after 45 days, the insurance carrier is not responsive to our requests for payment we may bill you directly. It is your obligation to monitor how they are paying on your behalf and we encourage active participation on your part. Telephone calls from you to the insurance company to inquire about lack of timely payment usually bring prompt action. Our billing service will inform you when your insurance has not paid your bill.

If you have managed care coverage, a call to the member services hotline will sometimes help expedite payment of your claim. If payment continues to be withheld, your employer's benefit department can inquire as to why and motivate them to take action. Your prompt attention to requests for information or to take action will always be the most effective way to deal with any billing issues.

Thank you for choosing St. Vincent Charity Medical Center for your care.