My rights being sued by a hospital??

[shoeluv26]

I live in Alabama, U.S.A

I went to the hospital in Oct. 07. I should have had insurance then but my job messed that up so I originally wasn't covered. The insurance company finally paid their part on Apr 17th. Which left me $1200. to pay. I contacted the hospital several months ago about setting up payments. They said they WOULD NOT accept any payments under $100. a month. I told them I couldn't pay that much. They told me again they wouldn't accept it. I was served with papers on Sunday for small claims court. By law is it legal for them to not take any payment I can make even if it's not what they want? I never sent a payment because of what they told me. Now I'm being told by peers I should have sent anything. So I was given less than 3 mths to pay this bill and they are taking me to court. Does this make sense? What are my legal rights???

Thanks,
Erica

 

[Michael Wechsler]

If you owe a bill of $1,000 due on Oct 1, if you can't pay it then it only makes sense that they can sue you for whatever the balance, plus interest. Paying $40 by October 1 doesn't change the fact that you'll owe $960 plus interest. Most of the time companies will sue just to get a judgement done instead of waiting for the debtor to decide when to pay. I'm sorry but what would you do if you were owed money? Probably the same thing.