<p>Found this wonderful site and thought maybe someone here might have some advice. 2 years ago my grandaughter, 16 at the time, went to visit family in the Netherlands. She had a medical emergency and had to have surgery. The bill was over $15,000 dollars. Unfortunately, my daugter’s medical insurance would not cover any of it. My daughter and her husband were in no way able to pay this bill as she was recovering from a disabling injury and is not back to work yet. The bill has now gone to a Dutch debt collector and since they were not with my granddaughter when this happened, everything is in my granddaughter’s name. She will be a sophomore in college this fall and is an excellent student. She is very worried about this debt affecting her credit and/or chances of getting student loans for graduate school. I would like to help her but unfortunately don’t have the money to pay the bill either.<br>
Any advice?</p>
<p>How about the other grandparents paying? Other relatives?
Your grand daughter is responsible for the medical bills.
She needs a part time job to make payments.
Small regular monthly payments, like $100 USD will show good faith in her commitment to settle her debt and if she doesn’t miss a payment for the next 2 years the outstanding debt may not affect her credit rating when applying to grad schools.
She will need to come to an agreement with the Dutch debt collector.
She can always postpone grad school until she has money to pay for it.</p>
<p>Her credit ‘should’ be adversely affected by this since she’s basically not paying her debts. What’s her ultimate plan for paying this debt or does she plan to just hope it goes away? </p>
<p>She needs to contact the debt collection company and come to an arrangement with them as to how to start paying this back. Almost anyone can come up with ‘some’ money to start paying back a bill like this. She can get a p/t job, the H can pay it or he can maybe get a p/t job. If they have car payments they can sell the car and get a less expensive one that doesn’t require payments and use that gain to pay this debt, etc.</p>
<p>If she just ignores that collection agency and has no plan for repaying her debt then she shouldn’t be surprised if it comes back to haunt her.</p>
<p>On a practical note - she can check with the credit agencies to see what her credit rating is currently like - i.e. if this debt is flagged already by them.</p>
<p>There are a few options you can consider,</p>
<ol>
<li>If it was not an elective surgery, then some charities may help out. Maybe the hospital where the surgery took place can guide you. </li>
<li>If it was a pre-existing condition that your US insurance knew about you should fight it out with them. Say she had atrial flutter and was documented here in the US. Then she goes over there and things get worse. If the Dutch doctor documented it, then you could fight with your insurance provider here. Most US insurance companies will try to find vague reasons to deny. That’s their business model.</li>
</ol>
<p>This is a good problem to be solved by hiring a lawyer and not listening to us random anonymous non-lawyer internet folks (including me, ha!). </p>
<p>I know from experience of living in the US and Canada, there isn’t much in the way of ‘credit rating’ information crossing even this familiar boundary…years of stellar credit in the US means nothing when you move to Canada. Might be an even larger gap between EU and the US. I am not advocating that she shirk her responsibilities to pay the bill, mind you, but simply that she should get the legal facts as they pertain to her unique situation.</p>
<p>At some point, when you do talk to a lawyer, I would be interested in knowing if the Dutch actually allow a 16 year old to be responsible for this sort of debt. I think here in the US the parents/guardian would be responsible for the debt. At 16 I thought we didn’t usually let people sign contracts for debt, etc. </p>
<p>In the Netherlands, can 16 year olds take on debt? And if not, how can she still be responsible for it?</p>
<p>Don’t get me wrong. I am not for shirking bills. I just don’t see how the contract would be enforceable if the 16 year old can’t be in a contract.</p>
<p>Thank you everyone for your responses. No one is looking for a way to not pay the bill, but seeking some advice on how to do it. I too was surprised that a 16 year old could be held responsible for a medical bill and not the parents. She was given a ticket to visit extended family as a thank you for babysitting cousins while they were in the states. Four days into her trip her appendix ruptured. Unfortunately her parents did not have travel insurance for her and assumed she would be covered wherever she went by their medical insurance. A big mistake. They fought the insurance company for over a year to no avail. I am the only grandparent left and as a retiree am not in a position to help out financially but have been trying to research and figure out what options my granddaughter has. She works 25 hours a week and pays her way through school along with some scholarships she earned. We discussed her taking a year off and working full time but with tuition constantly increasing she is trying to finish her bachelor’s degree as fast as possible.
She feels it is her responsibility and does not want to burden her parents when they are already struggling due to mom’s disability.
Because her major is Business/Finance, any adverse credit issues would greatly affect her ability to not only go on to graduate school but would also affect her ability to get hired at any job after she completes her bachelor’s degree.</p>
<p>Sounds like you need a Dutch attorney…</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Medical bills of a 16 year old are NOT her responsibility. What do her parents say about all this?</p>
<p>I agree with Delicate Arch; you should see an attorney. It’s admirable that she doesn’t want to shirk this bill but on the other hand, if it’s not a valid debt because she was a minor child, then she shouldn’t have to pay it.</p>
<p>I met a woman at Chicago airport the other week. She had her leg in a cast, she broke it in Netherlands on vacation, went to the local hospital, had full care, and got a bill for 100 euro. No insurance of any sort.</p>
<p>
I missed that she was 16 at the time.</p>
<p>I understand that you said ‘if’ but I don’t see why the debt wouldn’t still exist regardless of whether or not she’s a minor. We certainly have to pay for our minors here.</p>
<p>But maybe that’s what you meant and tying into ellemenope’s point - it seems that the parents s/b responsible since she’s only 16 y/o regardless of what each of them desire. </p>
<p>I also wonder about the legal aspect which may also have been your point - if the parents never gave permission for the procedures to be done and this is a minor then does the hospital have anything legally enforcable? I don’t even know how that’d work here - if a 16 y/o ends up in the ER with a burst appendix and it’s corrected through surgery before the parents are available to sign all the forms, is the family legally responsible for the minor since they never entered into a contract with the hospital? Maybe there are laws protecting hospitals and doctors on this point - it’d make sense.</p>
<p>Unless the laws are different in Holland, and they certainly might be, I don’t see how a debt collector could legally go after a minor. Imagine she was 2 y/o at the time - would they still go after her rather than the parents?</p>
<p>Given all of that, morally the money would be owed and it s/b paid back by the parents somehow.</p>
<p>Consulting a lawyer capable of handling a Dutch legal issue may be a good idea although that’d likely cost some money as well.</p>
<p>If she does hire an attorney, I would think his first letter should go to her American insurance company. Even policies that are pretty restrictive about out-of-network expenses usually cover emergency procedures. I would put ruptured appendix in that category. Sometimes a letter from an attorney magically opens the door. Good luck.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>A burst appendix is a life or death emergency. Even here, a hospital must provide life saving treatment in this instance, whether or not the patient has the means to pay, or whether or not they can contact the parents for permission.</p>
<p>That doesn’t answer your question, but this is not the same as a hospital performing a non essential procedure without parental permission. </p>
<p>In reading the OP’s posts, though, it sounds as though the parents may have consented anyway, due to the fact that a)they would want their daughter’s life saved, and b)apparently at the time, the believed the procedure would be covered by their own insurance.</p>
<p>Interesting dilemma. I would work two jobs before I would make/allow my daughter pay for a medical procedure that occurred when she was a minor child.</p>
<p>The only person who I have ever known who had a medical emergency in Holland while on vacation (multiple fracture of the leg after being hit by a car), didn’t pay a cent. It was all covered by the Dutch national health service. That was back in the 1980’s so things may have changed. My personal concern would be that this bill could be something that the granddaughter is NOT responsible for at all, and that some scam artist is trying to squeeze money out of her family.</p>
<p>She should contact the Legal Counselor at the Dutch consulate closest to where she lives. That person will be able to advise her on how best to get the legal advice that she needs.</p>
<p>Since this involved an emergency while overseas (plus hot-button issues like health care coverage and student loans), another possible resource for guidance on this matter is the local office of your Representative in Congress. It’s a bit hit or miss, but some of these politicians do have excellent constituent services aides. I had a weird insurance denial when I was in college that haunted me for a few years. One phone call from a Congressman’s office to the right person at the insurance company resulted in the problem disappearing.</p>
<p>I would contact your relatives in the Netherlands to negotiate the price. Offer 3000-4000 Euros to settle the bill. Veel geluk!</p>
<p>What happymomof1 said. It could be a scam.</p>
<p>happymom1 brings up a good point about whether this is even legit. Maybe a good starting point would be for the ‘parents’, i.e. not the granddaughter or anyone else, to contact that hospital that performed the procedures and find out from them if there was any money owed and if so, how much it is/was and what the current status is - i.e. did they turn it all over to a collection agency and if so which particular one and if not, if they know why this collection agency is contacting the minor and how to go about paying the bill.</p>
<p>The above should be a cheap and easy starting point.</p>
<p>Let’s say the situation is reversed and it was a Dutch 16 year-old here. Before treatment, a consent is signed by an adult guarantor agreeing to the treatment and the bill. The 16-year old will never be on the hook for the money. If the person is from overseas, I doubt many US hospitals would bother trying to collect. In any case most US hospitals will negotiate with deep discounts for a non-insurance patient payment. Perhaps this applies there too. So the question to me is more eithical - who should pay and how much. In both cases, I believe the child is not liable.</p>
<p>When we’ve been abroad, insurance companies have paid for treatment. We had to pay first, get documentation and the insurance reimbursed us. Perhaps something like this should also be tried - it may just be a matter of documentation. </p>
<p>Which finally leads me to the question of free health care in Europe. I guess even they have fine print.</p>
<p>^^In Canada, they do. When DH ended up in a Canadian ER, he was asked for “his card”. The nurse saw his WA state driver’s license in his open wallet and pointed to his MasterCard, “Oh, I see, you are not Canadian. In that case, this card would work, too!” 
</p>
<p>It is free to the residents. Otherwise, hordes of foreigners will flood the hospitals there.</p>
<p>Back to the topic.</p>