Need Help with Medical Lawsuit against me

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I got food poising from a fast food resturant. I got extremly ill, was puking my guts out, I almost passed out. So I went to the hospital not knowing what was going on with my body and afraid I would not be able to call anybody for help. I told the doctors and nurses that I was Autistic and that didn't understand any of the paper work they were throwing in my face and making me sign. They acknoweldged that I was Autistic, repeated to me, but didn't do anything about it.
The gave me like $2000 in medical treatment it turned out I didn't need. Nobody told me what the costs were, nobody tried to assist me or explain anything to me.

Now, months later, I got a summons sueing me for not paying the $2,000 plus legal fees and interest, saying that I agreed to pay for all this.

Isn't there something that I can do? Don't they have to provide me with someone that can explain all this before I signed anything? I never got anything, and I certainly wouldn't have agreed to any medical help that was not needed, and certainly not to that amount.

Aren't they required, when I told them I was Autistic and needed help, to provide that for me rather than getting me to sign papers agreeing to medical procedures I didn't need? Isn't this kind of coy and dishonest to do this?

What should I do? I your help here.

Best Regards,

Idaho Aspie

did you informed the restaurant about your illness? if you did, maybe they should pay.
when intoxication happens you have to inform the restaurant right away, so they can file a report and send you to a hospital.

Nobody is required to help you understand paperwork autistic, blind, deaf or otherwise. You should have not signed the paperwork and told them you needed them to contact a guardian. Legally they would have had to provide you care even if you had not signed the paperwork.

I suggest you go to a legal aid office to see if you can get a free or reduced price attorney. Legally you are required to pay that bill if you didn't have insurance or Medicare to cover it. The restaurant is not legally required to cover your bill unless you get an attorney and they lose the lawsuit.

The best you can do is go to legal aid office or else work out a payment plan with the hospital even if its just a few dollars a month. If they are a not for profit hospital sometimes they will right off bills if you can prove you can't pay.

My question to you is why are you asking this on a board made up mostly of children? You should be going to family members with this problem to ask for their advice and help if you are that autistic.

Do you have Asperger's? If so, that's no excuse. If you had autism, not Asperger's, then maybe so. Honestly, claiming Asperger's is not the best claim to try to get out of paying them. Especially since you signed the paper work. Get a good lawyer or just pay them.

A good cheap way to get help for defense is to contact you local ACLU office and they may be able to determine if your rights have been violated or help you any way they can.

contact your county department of social services. ask them to put you in contact with someone who handles their medicaid program. then explain what has happened. if you have low enough of an income, medicaid may pick up the bill.

if you are over 18, but have been placed in a guardianship by a court, you are probably not liable for the expenses. if you are under 18, they should not have asked you to sign anything or treated you without your guardian's written authorization. as such, it could well be that you are not responsible for the bill.

if you cannot get on medicaid and there is no other government program to help you, ask for a referral to your local legal aid society. a lawyer there may be able to help you.

best of luck!

What people are saying here is that if you are an adult and aren't under anyone else's guardianship, then you are responsible for yourself. If you are unable to understand contracts to access medical care, then perhaps you aren't able to be responsible for yourself.
On the other hand, if you were incapacitated from acute illness and you signed these papers on threat of denial of care, then you may have a case.
Then again, how do you know you received treatment "you didn't need"? Was it testing? or something completely unrelated to the food poisoning?

Contact the hospital's billing office.
Explain to them what you are saying here.
See what they can do to help.

The E.D. physician might be contract which means your bill for the doctor's services will come from whatever billing agent he/she has signed on with.

From your description here's what I assume you went through...

1. you show up with a complaint and they admit you to the Emergency Department (ED)
2. you sign paperwork that includes:
--- a release form stating that you give the hospital, it's employees and doctors permission to treat you.
--- a form stating you or someone else is responsible for the bill
--- whatever other forms they use at that particular hospital
3. you wait until the nurse can take your vital signs (blood pressure, temp, etc.)
4. you wait until the doctor can examine you and order - meds/I.V./lab tests/x-rays
5. after all that they cannot confirm any specific organism that caused your troubles, but maybe they give you or have given you medication for the pain and nausea.
6. you are discharged with instructions to follow up with your primary care physician

This should be pretty close to what you went through.

For future reference... in the U.S., no one can be denied treatment at an Emergency Room.
Insurance or not, if you present yourself at an emergency room, you must be seen.

This does not mean they will be able to figure out what is wrong with you, but they will try.
They may be able to alleviate your symptoms without knowing what's causing your trouble.
Medicine is not perfect.
It's not a simple.. you hurt here? then it can only be this ____!

If you are indigent you need to talk to the hospital's billing office.
They should be well versed in dealing with folks who cannot pay their bills.
This happens nonstop in our hospitals here in the U.S.
There is help available as was mentioned earlier... medicare, medicaid, etc.

No one here can get you any help with your bill... UNLESS... they are willing to start making phone calls on your behalf until they start dealing with personal information without authorization from you. HIPPA will stop anyone from helping you without legal documentation that you authorize that individual to be your advocate with access to all your personal information or specific bits you state individually.

So.. you need to find someone you have physical contact with to help.
If you feel unable to deal with the people from the hospital, social services, etc, you need to provide another person with written, notarized, legal authority to take care of your paperwork for you.

Face it... you're gonna have to talk to someone, and probably explain things to someone.
Find a way to do it, or just blow off the bill and summons.
If you own anything of value and it is identifiable by the courts, you can find a lien against it or the 'injured' party... the hospital... can sue you for damages and the court will order any valuable possessions not required by you for basic necessities (like a wheelchair for example.. they can't take that from you and sell it to recover goods, also not your primary residence, I believe), to be sold and the money given to the plaintiff.

Or... the hospital will realize they are going to spend more money on taking you to court than what they would ever get back and they write it off as a loss.

The physician's billing outfit will keep contacting you for payment, then probably turn your bill over to a private collection agency.
They will, in turn, start hounding you to pay up. You will also incur extra cost because your bill is overdue.
Some collection agencies try to strong-arm you by making incredible threats of what they can do to you.... take everything you own, send someone to your house to talk to you personally (not suggesting violence but intimidation), etc.
Most of that is just hot air.
More than likely, if you life in Idaho, the collection agency will be based in Florida or some similar place.

As your bill continues to be delinquent, reports will be made to one of several credit bureaus who will attach this information to a record with your name and social security number on it.
If, over the next several years you try to get a loan, credit card, etc., these places will get a copy of that report and see you did not pay your bill. You will most likely be denied any loan or credit card unless you are willing to accept their terms which will include very high down payments, etc.

If all this sounds scary... well.. to some folks it is.. to others it isn't.
This country is rife with people who do not pay their debts and these same people seem to continue to exist.

I see your biggest problem right now as one of voice.
You need to pull yourself together and get a means of voicing your issues to the appropriate party.
As I mentioned above, you need an advocate.
The only way to have one is to go out and find one.

I forgot to mention that some hospitals (or maybe all of them now) will sometimes cut a deal and accept a lower amount in cash and write off the rest of the bill.

Again, to know this for sure, you need to contact the billing office.
If you do this, also find out if they can help you with any of the other bills coming from outside the hospital (it's unlikely they will though), like the E.R. physician's bill, the x-ray and lab bill (if they are also contract and do not belong to the hospital).

The only other thing I can think of is help from a church.
I have only heard stories of some churches helping people out... I haven't seen it in real life yet.

I do wish you well. It's a tough situation for everyone.