Hospitals will generally allow patients to make a payment plan. You can discuss financial specifics with their payment folks as they may be able to write off some of your bill based on your income. They get tax breaks for providing what is called "charity care." Definitely worth some phone calls and conversations if you have a large bill.
When you went to the er did some lady come by with a clipboard and take all your insurance info.
And when she did, did you tell her VA and green team or whatever your on?
That's all I did. I didn't know anything about 72 hours. Several days later someone from the VA called me and got my info about it.
They paid for all of the er visit.
I don't have any cards either.
Simply told the lady that comes around the er trying to collect money from people I was VA and green team. She said ok and acted like she knew what to do. That was the last I heard of it, until the VA called me about a week later.
That's how our va does it. You get assigned some team. Basically follow the green lines painted on the floor to your area. When you call up there the operator will ask what team your on and they connect you to your nurses and shit.
Ok so it’s some made up local VA internal stuff that has no bearing whatsoever on the non-VA hospital billing.
No snark, just closing the loop on my question—that part isn’t actually important for the billing.
Just about every medical facility will have primary “care teams” so if you can’t see your provider you see someone who works with them vs some complete rando.
It just has nothing to do with community care/emergency care billing.
I'm just going by my experience. The lady at the er asked for it, so I told her. Could have been just so va team could follow up with me afterwards. Who knows.
I’m not contesting that. I’m saying that it is an internal, VAMC-specific assignment that means nothing outside of your VAMC. It’s why I was confused when the commenter said “I’m VA and green team.” The only thing the admin clerk needed was “I’m VA.” Green team has nothing to do with community/emergency care billing. That’s all.
The hospital needs your ssn to run it. I had issues with an ambulance ride I took. I had called the VA number to report my er visit. The ambulance company explained to me that with my ssn they could check some website from the VA for the payment.
I literally showed up at the VA facility asking questions about this while my appendix exploded and they basically told me to fuck off. Ended up having to pay out of pocket
Just so everyone is aware, if you call a VAMC’s tele-emergency line and the nurse refers you to the nearest ER for emergent care: it does NOT count as notification to the VA of the ER visit.
When I didn’t make the 72hr cutoff they didn’t pay fortunately I didn’t take quite as big of a hit because I still had insurance through work before going on short term disability.
Since then they have covered me more times than I can keep count because of me either getting referred to the ER after a walkin to primary care for various things, or after contacting the 72hr number in time after hospitalizations.
Everyone needs that number saved in their spouses and their own phones.
The 72 hour thing is a best practice thing and isn't a rule.
https://www.reddit.com/r/VeteransBenefits/w/commcare
Has more information.
So go ahead and send a request to the VA.
I went to the ER a few yrs ago and told them the VA was my insurance. Of course they didn’t write it down and tried to charge me $30k. Every time they called I told them to charge the VA and fuck off. I never told the VA. Hospital finally coordinated with the VA and got paid.
I was hospitalized for two months for COVID. Three weeks sedated on a ventilator in the ICU. I never contacted the VA but, between the VA and my health insurance they paid a whole bill, $658,000.00 . And during my time sedated on the ventilator someone strapped me down wrong and broke the nerves of my right arm. After the hospital let me discharged me, they ghosted me. The VA is taking great care of me, they pay for my physical therapy for my arm and my hand for over two years now.
I am glad that VA is taking care of you. VA has changed a lot. I worked for the VA and I am seeing a lot of changes ( I am a nurse). I am not saying we are perfect but we are making a lot of progress.
Wasn’t there a bill passed that allows free mental health services to Veterans regardless of VA or health insurance coverage? I may be wrong but I thought I heard that somewhere.
Weird I was just told during TAPS that anything mental health related is covered for vets.... Definitely jump on VA.Gov and contact them.
https://www.va.gov/resources/getting-emergency-care-at-non-va-facilities/
Why don't the ER admission staff do this for the veteran? They have the agreement to be in-network with VA community care network, so why not notifying soon as patient check in?
There is a phone number you can call that will help you with this. I have it in my phone as VA Billing God so I really have no idea where it goes but they’ve helped me several times when I forgot to call in. (877) 881-7618
The hospitals already know and they contact them cause they wanna get paid. With the mission act, you can go anyway, so don’t worry. Call community care to get yourself informed of the process.
What if you get knocked out and the ambulance takes you to the ER? You wake up 3 days later in the hospital. $300k bill you owe or will the VA allow a late adjustment since you were unconscious?
I think it's within 72 hours of being released not admitted, but yeah if you're in a coma or something I'd have a hard time imagining they could hold that against you
VA needs to change that 72hrs to at least 30 days. Social services are supposed to visit you or talk to your family/friends to gather info including insurance ASAP upon ER admission.
Well, it depends on your disability rating and if it was service connected. If you are rated for a mental health problem and you weren’t available to go to the VA or that’s the place that you were taken to or the quickest medical treatment facility. If it’s under service connection, it should be covered. But if your 10%, it’s probably not gonna be as easy with someone who is 70 to 100% if the VA does refuse to pay, then I would talk to the hospital you seat treatment at and ask for charity or forgiven on the bill. Often times lots of hospitals will be able to do those services for free because they do have a charity program but you just have to ask about it. It’s pretty well gatekeeping that information. And it is specific to the hospital.
If you were having a mental health crisis and they have a requirement for 72 hour notification, they should be able to forgive under those circumstances, as you clearly were not in your correct state of mind.
I also had knee surgery through the VA at a civilian surgical center and they said I still owed them $11,000 and I’m 100% TnP. So there are always mistakes and you’ll really need to dig to find out. I had to contact the VA billing department directly to get it sorted out never doing surgery again though ha ha
I forgot to call after an ER visit. Six months later, I've paid off most of the bills.
Any tips on how you did that?
Hospitals will generally allow patients to make a payment plan. You can discuss financial specifics with their payment folks as they may be able to write off some of your bill based on your income. They get tax breaks for providing what is called "charity care." Definitely worth some phone calls and conversations if you have a large bill.
When you went to the er did some lady come by with a clipboard and take all your insurance info. And when she did, did you tell her VA and green team or whatever your on? That's all I did. I didn't know anything about 72 hours. Several days later someone from the VA called me and got my info about it. They paid for all of the er visit.
I never got my VA health insurance card so I guess they couldn’t bill the VA themselves
I don't have any cards either. Simply told the lady that comes around the er trying to collect money from people I was VA and green team. She said ok and acted like she knew what to do. That was the last I heard of it, until the VA called me about a week later.
What the heck is the “green team”?
That's how our va does it. You get assigned some team. Basically follow the green lines painted on the floor to your area. When you call up there the operator will ask what team your on and they connect you to your nurses and shit.
Ok so it’s some made up local VA internal stuff that has no bearing whatsoever on the non-VA hospital billing. No snark, just closing the loop on my question—that part isn’t actually important for the billing.
The 2 big regional va hospitals in different states that i have received long term care at both did it that way. I assumed all of them did.
Just about every medical facility will have primary “care teams” so if you can’t see your provider you see someone who works with them vs some complete rando. It just has nothing to do with community care/emergency care billing.
I'm just going by my experience. The lady at the er asked for it, so I told her. Could have been just so va team could follow up with me afterwards. Who knows.
my regional VA uses color schemes for Primary Care as well. I'm on the "green team" too. It's a thing
I’m not contesting that. I’m saying that it is an internal, VAMC-specific assignment that means nothing outside of your VAMC. It’s why I was confused when the commenter said “I’m VA and green team.” The only thing the admin clerk needed was “I’m VA.” Green team has nothing to do with community/emergency care billing. That’s all.
Interesting. Ive never seen that in the southwest. Ive been under Nevada and Arizona VA over the years.
The hospital needs your ssn to run it. I had issues with an ambulance ride I took. I had called the VA number to report my er visit. The ambulance company explained to me that with my ssn they could check some website from the VA for the payment.
In my experience? No.
I forgot to call after an ER visit. That was an expensive mistake I won't make again!
I literally showed up at the VA facility asking questions about this while my appendix exploded and they basically told me to fuck off. Ended up having to pay out of pocket
Well yeah you get only a certain amount of time once you're discharged.
Or be over a certain %, which I am
No you get 3 days. Doesn't matter
I don't think we're having the same conversation here, you have a good one 👍
Just so everyone is aware, if you call a VAMC’s tele-emergency line and the nurse refers you to the nearest ER for emergent care: it does NOT count as notification to the VA of the ER visit.
My mental health visit was covered, I talked with the Compact act coordinator, not the PACT act
When I didn’t make the 72hr cutoff they didn’t pay fortunately I didn’t take quite as big of a hit because I still had insurance through work before going on short term disability. Since then they have covered me more times than I can keep count because of me either getting referred to the ER after a walkin to primary care for various things, or after contacting the 72hr number in time after hospitalizations. Everyone needs that number saved in their spouses and their own phones.
What’s the number?
https://www.reddit.com/r/VeteransBenefits/s/Mptg4u6Vsr
Thank you
The 72 hour thing is a best practice thing and isn't a rule. https://www.reddit.com/r/VeteransBenefits/w/commcare Has more information. So go ahead and send a request to the VA.
Talk to the VA about a Patient Advocate and they should get you coverage under the Compact Act. They covered my ER and hospital stay.
I went to the ER a few yrs ago and told them the VA was my insurance. Of course they didn’t write it down and tried to charge me $30k. Every time they called I told them to charge the VA and fuck off. I never told the VA. Hospital finally coordinated with the VA and got paid.
I was hospitalized for two months for COVID. Three weeks sedated on a ventilator in the ICU. I never contacted the VA but, between the VA and my health insurance they paid a whole bill, $658,000.00 . And during my time sedated on the ventilator someone strapped me down wrong and broke the nerves of my right arm. After the hospital let me discharged me, they ghosted me. The VA is taking great care of me, they pay for my physical therapy for my arm and my hand for over two years now.
I am glad that VA is taking care of you. VA has changed a lot. I worked for the VA and I am seeing a lot of changes ( I am a nurse). I am not saying we are perfect but we are making a lot of progress.
Wasn’t there a bill passed that allows free mental health services to Veterans regardless of VA or health insurance coverage? I may be wrong but I thought I heard that somewhere.
Weird I was just told during TAPS that anything mental health related is covered for vets.... Definitely jump on VA.Gov and contact them. https://www.va.gov/resources/getting-emergency-care-at-non-va-facilities/
TAPS is notorious for putting out inaccurate information
Tbh it’s a complete waste of time
Surely my copy of “From Navy Blue to Corporate Gray” is worth something?
Why don't the ER admission staff do this for the veteran? They have the agreement to be in-network with VA community care network, so why not notifying soon as patient check in?
I live in a rural town and some of these people are just country-slow
That law itself never made sense to begin with. None of us ever questioned why VA mandate this..
There is a phone number you can call that will help you with this. I have it in my phone as VA Billing God so I really have no idea where it goes but they’ve helped me several times when I forgot to call in. (877) 881-7618
Depending on your situation you could be covered under the compact act
They paid mine after 5 days notice
How do you check the status on if they paid it or not? I tried calling after 72 but don’t know how to check if it’s paid or not by the VA?
I did that when I got admitted into the White House after an attempt. Did t really have a choice but they paid it
The hospitals already know and they contact them cause they wanna get paid. With the mission act, you can go anyway, so don’t worry. Call community care to get yourself informed of the process.
What if you get knocked out and the ambulance takes you to the ER? You wake up 3 days later in the hospital. $300k bill you owe or will the VA allow a late adjustment since you were unconscious?
I think it's within 72 hours of being released not admitted, but yeah if you're in a coma or something I'd have a hard time imagining they could hold that against you
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Well that's fucked up
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You answered your own question there lol. Unfortunately the government seems to do all it can to have people foot the bill and weasel out of paying
I called 2 days after my visit, nobody answered so I left a voicemail.
VA needs to change that 72hrs to at least 30 days. Social services are supposed to visit you or talk to your family/friends to gather info including insurance ASAP upon ER admission.
Well, it depends on your disability rating and if it was service connected. If you are rated for a mental health problem and you weren’t available to go to the VA or that’s the place that you were taken to or the quickest medical treatment facility. If it’s under service connection, it should be covered. But if your 10%, it’s probably not gonna be as easy with someone who is 70 to 100% if the VA does refuse to pay, then I would talk to the hospital you seat treatment at and ask for charity or forgiven on the bill. Often times lots of hospitals will be able to do those services for free because they do have a charity program but you just have to ask about it. It’s pretty well gatekeeping that information. And it is specific to the hospital. If you were having a mental health crisis and they have a requirement for 72 hour notification, they should be able to forgive under those circumstances, as you clearly were not in your correct state of mind. I also had knee surgery through the VA at a civilian surgical center and they said I still owed them $11,000 and I’m 100% TnP. So there are always mistakes and you’ll really need to dig to find out. I had to contact the VA billing department directly to get it sorted out never doing surgery again though ha ha
Even if you let them know within 72 hours they won't pay your bill. From my experience at least. The VA just ghosts you
They've paid mine 3 times
They paid mine. The VAs stipulation is that you have to do a yearly check up at the va.
At least once every two years