Patient hit with $700 bill for 3-day hospital stay
A Sarnia woman on the hook for a $700 hospital stay is looking for help.
Mary Leblanc said she spent three days in hospital in Sarnia for a kidney infection in March.
The Type 2 diabetic said she's been unable to see since earlier this year, and had no idea, when she was admitted to start antibiotic treatment, she was being admitted to a semi-private room.
Nobody was available at the hospital on a Saturday to run her insurance information, to find out if the semi-private room was covered, Leblanc said.
“I never thought of asking to move, to go to a ward,” she said. “I was pretty sick and in a lot of pain, so I wasn't asking many questions at all.”
After getting her bill in May, she contacted Bluewater Health about waiving the charges, she said, but was told she had to provide financial details like her mortgage payments, her husband's income and information about their bills.
Leblanc said she received notice, after last year's cyberattack at Bluewater Health, that her personal information was among the millions of records stolen.
“I'm not about to give them more information to get stolen,” she said.
Leblanc, 63, said she doesn't work or get government supports.
She used to clean houses, she said, but hasn't for “quite a while” to be home with her 23-year-old daughter, who has cerebral palsy.
Her husband, who works, and daughter visited her for short periods during her hospital stay, she said, but weren't there when she signed a form for the room charges.
Hospital officials “came up and said, `Here. you have to sign here,' ” she said. “I was kind of worried. I had nobody with me to read it to me. I signed it and then I got a bill for $700.”
Leblanc said she's tried contacting local support agencies for help but hasn't gotten anywhere.
“Maybe somebody out there has an idea where I can go or what I can do,” she said, asking people to call
her at 519-491-6980.
“They should have put me into the other kind of room where everybody is put in,” she said.
Bluewater Health's chief financial officer and vice-president of corporate services Marlene Kerwin said officials can't comment on individual patient cases for privacy reasons.
“If a patient requests accommodations in a semi-private or private room, there is a charge for these
preferred accommodations,” she said in a statement.
She confirmed patients must sign off before room accommodation charges are applied, and said concerns raised with Bluewater Health's patient experience office are “thoroughly reviewed.”
Since the cyberattack, “Bluewater health has implemented enhanced security measures to protect patient information,” she said.