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These 29 Words Prevent High ER Bills

Updated: May 15

****You can download the app with these words right into your phone and have them pop up when you fo to the ER. Chances are you reached this blog from your home page quiz. This app can be reached right from your home page****


"Superseding other consents, I consent to responsibility (including insurance) for up to 2 times Medicare following receipt of an itemized bill for appropriate treatment coded at the correct Level."



If you need care in an emergency room, do not sign the financial consent that the hospital or free-standing ER has put in front of you. (The electronic form will require two signatures, the first for treatment and the second to pay for it. Sign only the first.)


Instead of signing the second, demand to have the financial consent printed out and write in this one sentence on your phone, or use our wallet sticker:

SImply peel it off and affix it, like this:


 

That sentence is Quizzify’s ER Sticker Shock Prevent Consent. We will refer to it here as the Consent. Writing in/sticking on these words will prevent the hospital from charging you a lot of money. Except possibly in Alaska or Hawaii, where everything costs more, the total bill will always be under $1000 if you don't get a fancy scan, or have a procedure performed by an on-call doctor. Regardless, it will be half of what you usually pay.


If you are a Quizzify customer, your Quizzify2Go app will reveal many other reminders of your rights as a patient in the ER and how to use them.




You will also see two phone numbers. (We have hidden the second.) The first is, as noted, a 24/7 expert line to use if indeed a hospital denies you treatment because you are not signing their consent but rather insisting on yours. Our experts will ask you to hand the phone to the intake staff and, if possible, turn the speaker on so that you can hear too. Assuming you have a real emergency (and not just a splinter, for example), our experts can be very convincing on these recorded phone calls.


The second number is in case the hospital “forgets” that they agreed to your Consent, and instead sends you a regular bill. We will “reprice” the bill correctly and send it back, with instructions to re-send you the correct bill and cc us. (Your employer will not know your name.) We will then be available if the situation does not easily resolve, all at no cost to you.


If for some reason you don’t download this information from your home page and need an access number, write to Hello@Quizzify.com, from your work address, and someone should send it to you. Unlike the emergency hotline, this is not an official 24/7 service, though, and depends on our availability.

 

FAQs about the Prevent Consent


Q: Why does the hospital have to accept this Consent?


A: The Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act of 1986 (“EMTALA”) forbids healthcare facilities licensed as hospitals from turning away emergencies because they don’t like your insurance or because you have none. “Emergencies” covers not just ER visits, but also deliveries and admissions that are not planned. This includes COVID, which would virtually always be an eme