I had knee surgery about 8 months ago and I keep receiving random surprise bills in the mail from different medical departments having to do with my surgery.  To be honest, it’s so aggravating.  This is my first serious “expensive” medical procedure and at no point was I told that I would have to continue paying bills post surgery.  They never even let me see an estimate of how much it would cost when insurance paid their part.

It feels like I’m being robbed.  I feel angry and resentful towards the medical system.  I don’t trust them. I  feel like I’m being taken advantage of.  It’s such a shady industry that clearly cares more about money and less about the actual healing of the patient (at least so I believe).

What’s happening now on my end is I get the medical bill and I immediately tear it up and throw it away because I’m so angry about it.  It’s a “fuck the system” mindset.  Ironically though, I am now being sent to a debt collector and it’s harming my credit.

I think the wise thing to do would be to try and sort out some payment plan with my debt collectors but part of me is so annoyed I feel like I would come off as wanting to fight with whoever I’m speaking with.  I guess I want the result that I think would be best for me, which I hate to say it, is just paying the damn bills instead of ignoring them and being done with these vampires forever.  Part of me is a bit too prideful though and feels like I’m enabling this shady behavior in the industry.  How should I approach this?