how to best pay off hospital bill?

[cantora87]

Got our hospital bill for the birth of our first baby. It's 4200. There are two payment options: all at once with a 30 percent discount or the whole thing over six months. Problem is, we don't quite have all the cash on hand to pay it less the 30 percent, and if we delayed paying a month or so until we did--not even sure they'd let us--it would completely wipe out our savings.
Thoughts? Advice?

[EmsMom]

any way you could get a 0 % credit card and pay it off, getting the deduction and then pay it off over 6 months or so?

[sere234]

Have you called them to work out a deal? We got the bills for our son's one week NICU stay ($40,000 before insurance!) and I called all the billing departments to get financial assistance. We make a decent income but paying $5-6,000 just isn't something we wanted to do since it would have nearly wiped out our savings. Got our bills all reduced just by talking to them and sending in proof of our income.

If there are no more discounts possible I'd call and ask to defer it for another month then pay it all at once