How to get my Hospital bill settled down for a service that I didn&#39;t receive?
<p>Last January, I was very sick from a common cold that I could barely drive myself to Hospital. </p>

<p>I somehow pulled myself to the Hospital gates and had a checkup with the Physician there. They check me, and prescribed me drugs for cure. This was my first time visit to any hospital in US and I didn't know much about all the rules and regulations. After getting my prescriptions I was asked to get those drugs and consume them as required. </p>

<p>Straight out from Hospital I went to Drug store after a good drive nearby my house. When I reached the Drug store I asked for the medicines, to which the Pharmacist denied me medicines on the pretext that my Prescriptions were neither signed nor had the physicians license number. </p>

<p>I didn't have the strength to drive back some mile to hospital and thus had to get myself cured by some alternative means, which does not involve anything from that Hospital service. </p>

<p>In US, it is not legal to have drug without proper Prescription from a Physician. </p>

<p>Almost 10/11 months from that incident till now, I have been chased by my Hospital to pay bills for a service that I didn't get. I chased my insurance company for help, but even they denied stating that I received a service just by talking to a Doctor. </p>

<p>What options to I have in my disposal to take action against the Hospital and get myself hooked out from the Hospital bill? </p>

<p>You being responsible for the service does not predicate you following through and becoming well again. Even dead people have hospital bills. You <em>did</em> receive a service, you just didn't get the prescription. Was this the hospitals fault? Probably, but they wouldn't be liable to refund your entire visit for that reason. Hospital phone numbers are very easy to look up, and that information would be on the prescription paper, your discharge papers, or just by googling the hospital you went to.</p>

<p>Think of it this way, you went to a restaurant and ordered a steak and a side. The side never arrived but you ate the steak. You can't say at the end of the meal "well I didn't get the side, so I don't owe anything". Here the steak is the doctors visit, the diagnosis, and the time spent getting seen. The side is the prescription...</p>

<p>It doesn't matter if you were unable to follow up and get the prescription. You obtained a service, even if that service was lacking in some detail, it does not mean that you are entitled to disregard the bill. Unfortunately you'll have to pay.</p>

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<p>As a note, many hospitals in the US do not do paper prescriptions anymore. They are now sent electronically to pharmacies (every time I visit a doctor, one of the questions they ask me is "pharmacy XXX on road XYZ?"). This is to help curb abuse and to get accurate data transmitted to the pharmacy to reduce prescription mix-ups (doctors are notorious for bad handwriting). I'm surprised that whatever hospital you visited didn't have a similar system...</p>

<p>Sounds like you owe the hospital. They provided you with care. You claim the prescription wasn't valid, but didn't apparently tell the hospital to send over a valid prescription. That's your fault (also, I've never heard of a prescription requiring a license number). Also, this is why you don't go to the emergency room for the common cold.</p>

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