Medical Bills for parent that passed away in US during visit

[blue_tooth]

Hello,
My parents were visiting me from India a few months ago and had purchased a travel insurance from Bharti General Insurance for the duration of the visit from India. During their visit, my mother suffered a massive stroke and was hospitalized. She was admitted to the ICU and then transferred to another hospital the next day. She underwent different procedures including craniotomy posterior fossa and shunting. However, despite all the efforts, her condition only worsened and she passed away within 7 days. During her hospitalization, my father signed all the consent forms, etc. My name was not mentioned anywhere, although my phone number and address was given as his address. My father has since returned to India.
Now, we are receiving bills at my US address, from EMS, the hospital and the ER. So far, all the bills are in my mother's name. We provided a copy of the travel insurance to the hospital, which had my parents' Indian address and so the hospital sent a bill (over $90K) to the address in India.
I wanted to know how the billing and collection will work all these bills. Do I or should respond to any of these bills? If they find out that the patient has passed away, will they send the bills in my father's name? Will the collection agencies get involved at some point? And mainly, do the collection agencies have any reach (directly or through affiliates) in India?
Any suggestions, pointers, experiences would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you!

[immihelp]

Is the insurance company not making the payments? Could you please elaborate?

[blue_tooth]

Is the insurance company not making the payments? Could you please elaborate?

No, the insurance company is not making any payments, apparently. The hospital bill explicitly shows the "Amount paid by the Insurance to be zero". I did not follow up with the insurance company, but my understanding from the billing statement is that, since the insurance company is not making any payments, the hospital has given discount on almost all items listed in the 5-page long bill. I am not sure why the insurance has not covered anything, since emergency events were to be fully covered by the insurance they had. However, if the insurance were to cover any of the items, the discounts would perhaps go away, and since the coverage was for up to $50K from this insurance, we still would have a leftover amount that my mother would be responsible for.

[immihelp]

Despite all the negative experiences, I don't understand why people still continue to purchase travel insurance from Indian companies. If they don't pay, there is not much you can do here. You have nobody to go after in the US.

Always buy from US based companies. Read https://www.insubuy.com/comparing-tr...-usa-vs-india/

Did you buy the insurance from an agent or broker? Are they helping? Even though it costs you nothing extra, there is an immense value in choosing the right broker, especially in the time of needs like this.

https://www.insubuy.com/why-purchase-from-insubuy/

https://www.insubuy.com/visitors-insurance-claims-help/

Please ask the hospital as much discount as possible and make payment arrangements.

Hospitals may not directly do this, but they might eventually assign the case to the collection agencies and I have seen they eventually have collaborations with recovery agents in India as well who may not obey much laws and try their best for recovery of money.

[blue_tooth]

Despite all the negative experiences, I don't understand why people still continue to purchase travel insurance from Indian companies. If they don't pay, there is not much you can do here. You have nobody to go after in the US.

Did you buy the insurance from an agent or broker? Are they helping? Even though it costs you nothing extra, there is an immense value in choosing the right broker, especially in the time of needs like this.

https://www.insubuy.com/why-purchase-from-insubuy/

https://www.insubuy.com/visitors-insurance-claims-help/

Hospitals may not directly do this, but they might eventually assign the case to the collection agencies and I have seen they eventually have collaborations with recovery agents in India as well who may not obey much laws and try their best for recovery of money.

I understand; and I certainly have learned from this experience.
The travel insurance was bought from an agent. They have not been helpful so far.
My father is thinking about contacting the hospital for any possibility of financial assistance. Is there something specific we need to be aware of or mindful about?

[narendra]

I am sorry to hear about your situation and I truly sympathize with you. Losing a parent is a great loss and I know that.

I started our company Insubuy to offer visitors insurance from the US companies around 17 years ago after I personally suffered with my parent who bought the insurance from an Indian company and was of no use when he got seriously sick in the US. And the agent was nowhere to be found.

Today, there are hundreds of agents around who sell the same thing at the same price. However, I still operate my company Insubuy with one mission: To help our community, not only before the sale, but also after sale. No one should suffer the way I personally did. If you have a legitimate claim that is getting delayed or denied, we will do everything possible and go to the highest level at the insurance company to get your claim approved. You have a team of fighters on your side that has a lot of buying power and influence at no additional cost you.

Therefore, I urge everyone to buy travel insurance only from the US based company and only from the broker that commits to help you at the time of claim (and is well known for fulfilling that commitment), when you need them the most. Don't just buy from any website that comes first in Google search. Being a little more careful for a few seconds could have a major impact in your life for many years to come.

Of course, any of the above does not help your case, as it is already too late now. The best you can do is try to negotiate as much as you can with the hospital to try to reduce the bill and pay it off. If you are unable to pay all at once, try to make the installment arrangements with the hospital.

Also, I hope that you would spread the awareness among your friends and colleagues so that they don't suffer the way you are. We can all help one another in a "foreign country".

I wish you all the best.

[Anand KR]

I am sorry for your loss.....Generally speaking, hospitals in USA have no way of going through a claim process with a Insurance company in India and get paid. So the normal approach is you pay the bills and submit a separate claim to your Indian insurance company for reimbursements. This is assuming that your insurance contract with India company allows expenses to be re-imbursed for events outside of India. So my recommendation is contact Bharti Insurance directly (read your insurance contract completely) and get your claim process going. I don't think travel agent is going to help as he is not a Insurance broker.

You can certainly contact hospital for finance assistance etc which they encourage + be mindful of who will take ownership of the payment. If it is you, it can impact your credit standing. In some cases depending on hospital, they also full waiver through their assistance program for needy patients.

Thanks
Anand