Bankruptcy from the most expensive helicopter ride ever!

[USMCmech]

Just a heads up. I called a couple of the bills to negotiate something I can afford in the long term and here is how that went.....

Right now the simple fact is you can't pay a dime, for now. Don't worry too much about it.


In the near future when you are working again, you will have to pay them. Hopefully you can negotiate this down to about 20% of the total private pay "bill". You'll probably have to tap your home's equity to do so (including possibly selling it), but that is a thousand times better than decarling ch 7.


Don't let a BK lawyer talk you into declaring anytime soon, you are months or even years away from being sued and forced to pay. Then and only then would you be forced to declare ch 13 or ch7.

 

[CoffeeIcePapers]

In Texas, creditors can't come after your primary residence and must leave you with one vehicle. I wouldn't sell the truck or the house, if you can afford to stay in the house. I would take on another roommate if I were you, to help pay the bills.

I would advise against renting it out and getting an apt, because it would no longer be your primary residence and could potentially allow creditors to come after it.

If you can't afford to stay in the house, then I would think any profit you make on the sale would allow the creditors to come after that money.

 

[TexasFlyer]

In Texas, creditors can't come after your primary residence and must leave you with one vehicle. I wouldn't sell the truck or the house, if you can afford to stay in the house. I would take on another roommate if I were you, to help pay the bills.

I would advise against renting it out and getting an apt, because it would no longer be your primary residence and could potentially allow creditors to come after it.

If you can't afford to stay in the house, then I would think any profit you make on the sale would allow the creditors to come after that money.

I've heard that. Right now I will stick in the house as my primary residence but go to the apartment since it's only 300 square feet and makes it possible for me to care for myself better (the apartment is free now as a favor for a temporary living situation). So I may change a mailing address, but I will keep my house as my primary address. It's just tough to be in the house due to the stairs and such. The apartment is ground floor with no steps.

I have one roommate which is all the house can handle. It's only a 2 bedroom one bath home with about 1,200 to 1,300 of living space. So it's a small home. And hence why I can afford to live there. Total mortgage with taxes and insurance is under $1,200 a month (I just added it up). The roomie covers $500 a month which means I pay $700 a month. No more than a decent one bedroom apartment would cost in a safe area of town since those range from $500 a month in a shady area to over $1,000 a month in place only my doctors would live while in town.

In the future I still may sell the house just to make good on the medical bills if they come to a reasonable amount after negotiating. I will hang onto the truck since I can not see selling it and the few grand of equity in it after I bought a lesser vehicle would make no sense.

Right now, time will tell where this goes. I will know more after that Care Link appointment. Hopefully they can help, even though I am not too sure what they do and their website is very vague.

 

[I_Money]

I would not call the phone number on the bill - call the hospital directly. Most hospitals outsource billing, but have a department which helps people who can not afford the bill. The reason you did not get a good response is was you were talking to the wrong people.

 

[HeyEng]

I tend to make quick decisions. I already called The Barfield Group and he is going to try to sell my house and/or rent it for enough to have me cover the mortgage (I have a place I can go stay for $300/month which can help!). I was told he helps with historical homes and knows the Tobin Hills area well. He suggested a 'silent' sale since that is how to bring the most cash, but I may need more of a 'quick and reasonable' sale. He did a CMA and home sales there range from $50k to $250k it seems. It's a eclectic area since one house is in amazing condition and the one next door is falling in on itself. Lucky for me, on my street, the top and bottom of the street is real bad homes. But the houses on all sides of me are in really good condition since myself and all the immediate families next to me take pride in our historical bungalows. So the sale is already in the beginning process. I am hopeful to get in the $180's for it since that's my break even point, although I owe much less on it. I guess we'll see what happens.


The Hot Dog Stand is fabulous. It's a couple blocks from my house.
1) Take Route 281 and exit at St Mary's Street.
2) Then go toward downtown, which is South on N. St. Mary's Street (which is away from Brackenridge Park and the Zoo).
3) Go past the YMCA and Grace Coffee House for about 1 block.
4) Then on the RIGHT you will see an old building called Candlelight behind the tree line (so look hard as it's white and has lots of windows). That's another coffee house. On the LEFT you will see a salsa dance club and diagonal you will see Tycoon Flats which is a live music place and restaurant. TURN RIGHT after that Candlelight Coffee house. It's a hard right since a mild right puts you on Woodlawn Ave. You want to be on King's Court.
5) The Hotdog stand is called Frankfurter Express (sometimes us locals just call it kings court since the King of hotdogs works there). You can't miss the place. The whole front fence says hot dogs. Unless of course they painted it again. They change the look often since they keep it fresh, yet historically artistic like most of the neighborhood.

If you plan to go to the hotdog stand, PM me. I will pass along my phone number. I would be glad to meet you there. And the place is BYOB, so bring a six pack for us :beer:

The hot dog stand is one of the few places I can go since the folks there will help me get out of my truck when I pull up. So I can go there anytime. They are open from 11am to 8pm Monday thru Wednesday. And from 11am to 11pm Thursday thru Saturday. Closed on Sunday.

They know me well. My nickname there is "Airforce". I have no idea why, but that's what they call me. Just say I sent you there and you want a good deal on a special dog. Or best yet, invite me along. I will be happy to introduce you to the owner and his son and The King who are all great people!

Dude...I am a total idiot. I didn't even see this post until now. I guess you posted it about the same time I posted my deal about RE here in town. Tobin Hills is a pretty cool place and hopefully it'll work out OK for you. If we hang around here after my AF days are done, we would LOVE to live in the King William district. I am not a HUGE fan of downtown living, but I could handle that quite easily.

Also, I think I will take you up on the hot dog stand too. I will shoot you a PM with my contact info. Mooneyguy sent me an e-mail earlier about getting together, so maybe we can make a mini S.A. meet-n-greet out of it.

 

[SpiraMirabilis]

I would not call the phone number on the bill - call the hospital directly. Most hospitals outsource billing, but have a department which helps people who can not afford the bill. The reason you did not get a good response is was you were talking to the wrong people.

Correct. And hospital outsourced billing depts function like collection departments in that the company gets incentives and money for themore they are able to collect, if they can catch you before collections.

 

[exneophyte]

This is probably not an option, but I figured I'd ask if you thought about it. It sounds like you were making decent money in your previous work even though you didn't like it or yourself doing it.

Do you think you could stomach doing that kind of work again for two years if you knew all of this could get paid for? It probably wouldn't be fun, but you could put it behind you.

 

[TexasFlyer]

This is probably not an option, but I figured I'd ask if you thought about it. It sounds like you were making decent money in your previous work even though you didn't like it or yourself doing it.

Do you think you could stomach doing that kind of work again for two years if you knew all of this could get paid for? It probably wouldn't be fun, but you could put it behind you.

I actually went back to my third party recruiting roots last year in a new industry for me, Medical Oncology (cancer therapy). That was since times were tight. I brought in a bit over $20k in 90 days just getting ramped up.

The work schedule was tough. I worked 8am to 5:30pm in the office which was about 20 minutes from the airport. I then drove to the airport to fly from 6pm to 8:00pm with one private pilot student who I took on full time. And my instrument student flew from 9pm to 11:00pm. I was home by about 11:45pm each night and I only got to eat lunch and grab a quick Chick-fil-a on the way to the airport. I usually ate something at home and then just went to sleep to do it all over again. I also worked weekends flying 11am to 6pm both days.

I don't mind hard work. Even as a CFI, I once had 6 full time and 4 part-time students and I love it! I work 9am to 11pm weekdays to fly 7 hours a day and get a good 2 hours of ground school in. And 11am to 7pm weekends to get a good 4-5 hours of flight time in. But that is when I had to student load to do so. That is not the case anymore. It's more like 11am (everyone no shows at 9am) to 7pm since that all the load we have. And that yields about 5-6 hours of pay tops each day. Hence why I worked out Outback waiting tables a few nights a week. I did 3 nights a week there to keep from being exhausted too much and that helped get me to break even.

Okay, back to recruiting. I can't do it. In 30 days I was angry. In 60 days I went crazy. And in 90 days I walked out. That business just makes me feel bad. It's a slime ball business. I say that because I always tried to be a very honest business person and always do the right thing. The majority of the industry is so money crazy they will lie, steal, cheap, and tear you apart by the heels so they can make something happen for them and take it from you. I just can not work in such a hateful money driven uncompassionate business any longer. It is not worth all the money in the world to come home feeling mentally beat up and bad about what you do.

That business is driven by personal greed. And when you can put $5k to $10k in your pocket a week by playing dirty, most people will. The honest guy makes half that and suffers a terrible mental plight. I'm done with this rant. The answer is no.

I will go back to flying and being poor. And I will take on a second job on the side to make a few bucks extra. And even at my age and education level, waiting tables is not below me since I did it late last year and early this year. It's a far cry from $1,000 days... but I rather have $100 days and smile and be angry.


On a side note. My old business was so stressful, I posted back in 2006 or 2007 on here I think that I was having high blood pressure. I posted in the medical forum on here. It was around 150/98 or something bad. I also could not even walk up a flight of steps without chest pain and being out of breadth.

I went to the clinic and had all kinds of tests. Even a tread mill showed nothing. I paid only a couple bucks for this since I had insurance :banghead:

The doc said it was stress. I did not believe him. I swore I was having a heart attack every day the pain and pressure was so much. So I swore I would show him. I joined a gym and did a 3 hour intense work out every night trying to keel over just to prove my point. I even hired a personal trainer for $100 a day to push me to the limits. He loved my progress. I was just mad. I didn't keel over! This was how much anger I had bent up in me back then.

Since I didn't keel over, after about 3 months and a very unhappy personal trainer (he was making out like a bandit for guiding me for $500 bucks a week), I quit the gym.

I went through the next few months with this plight that never healed. But I was also determined to go to flight school and be a pilot. I quit the business and ended up at flight school. I just squeaked by my medical with marginal blood pressure and I was told I even needed glasses! I don't wear glasses since my vision was okay for years, but being in a crazy job can do crazy things to you.

Once at flight school, within 30 days I never had a chest pain again. So it was clear. The doc was right. It was STRESS. Stress is an amazing thing. And it will kill you. My old career was killing me!!!

And furthermore, my blood pressure now sits at a decent 120/80 on a regular basis. And I do not wear glasses anymore either as my vision sneaks in just at 20/20 to 20/25. Someday I will need glasses, but not quite yet. And best of all, I treat people better today. All that stress made me bitter back then.

Probably more than you wanted to hear. But now you know why I can not go back to make the big bucks in that old business.

But I am willing to work just as hard as a pilot. And even work as a pilot and in another career for 10% of what my potential is. Just because it is worth my sanity to do so.

 

[TexasFlyer]

I would not call the phone number on the bill - call the hospital directly. Most hospitals outsource billing, but have a department which helps people who can not afford the bill. The reason you did not get a good response is was you were talking to the wrong people.

Maybe the Care Link people are the right people that I will meet with on the 19th. But they are not part of the hospital since they have an office downtown. I was just told they will base payments relative to my income. Nothing else.

After I visit them on the 19th, if they do not reduce total bills or work on my behalf, I will go to the hospital billing department personally on my next doctor visit (which is always at the hospital) and present my case to them.

Thanks for the insight.

 

[I_Money]

I actually had a stint in recruiting - now how you feel! Dailing for dollars is tough - I have been tempted to do it part time out of the bedroom while at school, however much like you it make my skin crawl.

 

[XLR99]

Maybe the Care Link people are the right people that I will meet with on the 19th. But they are not part of the hospital since they have an office downtown. I was just told they will base payments relative to my income. Nothing else.

After I visit them on the 19th, if they do not reduce total bills or work on my behalf, I will go to the hospital billing department personally on my next doctor visit (which is always at the hospital) and present my case to them.

Thanks for the insight.

I was also thinking CareLink is the financial counseling dept - maybe google search it and see what you come up with. It sounds like it. FWIW some of the most nasty hateful people I've met are people in ancillary depts at hospitals like billing/reg etc.

Interesting perspective on recruiting. One of my fmr students is a recruiter, and he was trying to work on me to come on with him and help bridge into medical specialties. My BP's high enough already, thanks.....
Definitely sounds like a lot of progress in a few days, though.

 

[SpiraMirabilis]

From someone in San Antonio, here is info on CareLink:

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1053830/carelink_bexar_county_financial_program.html

Basically it is a university health systems program. They won't be able to reduce your amount owed, I don't think, but they can look for other ways to get the money, like federal or state programs you may be eligible for. Really it isn't for your situation, it was designed for very low income people to stop them from visiting expensive emergency rooms every time they have a cold for primary care. In the program you're assigned a clinic as a primary care physician and "medical home" and that clinic will coordinate any specialist or hospital visits you need.

Did you have any Personal Injury Protection coverage on your motorcycle policy? That is a no-fault coverage, so even if the accident was at fault it will still pay out. By default in Texas you need at least $10,000 PIP coverage. You can decline this coverage but you have to do so in writing so most don't.

 

[TexasFlyer]

Recruiting is not bad if you work directly for a company. Internal recruiting is a good job and I would do something like that. I'd never be paid what I am worth on the internal side, but like I mentioned, sanity is everything. And I'm darn good at it. Plus, all the things i did not enjoy are mostly eliminated once you go internal. The only item you add is company politics. But a strong recruiter will easily work around that one and excel.

On the flip side, if you are third party temp recruiting, that is just dialing for dollars. And unless in IT, the money is not so good there. So I always avoided that one since IT causes a void in my brain. I'm not good in that area.

So I learned to avoid healthcare and IT recruiting on the contract side and direct hire side both. There is big money there for those who can do it. Very few people love it, but it does pay off financially if you can hack it.

I was in third party direct hire recruiting. Actually ranked #2 in the State of Texas for a couple years and always in the top 10% in any market I worked based on all the stats. And since it's a sales based industry, everyone will know your numbers. Even your competitor!

I specialized in Finance and Accounting at first since that is where my degree and prior experience was. Then ventured out into Aviation Recruiting on my own with a business aviation niche. Specifically the niche of FBOs and Repair Stations, although I did place people into a few flight departments and airports and such. I loved the people I dealt with since at least I got to talk aviation all day. And I did learn a lot about business aviation which I am grateful for. Man I miss going to NBAA!!! But in the end the stress was killing me.

Third party direct hire recruiting involves you creating everything. You cold call all day and sell your service to get someone that will allow you to help them. Than once they agree you explain that we charge 25-33% on one person's salary for them to hire our person. That is a tough sell, so most times you talk on deaf ears. But then this is sales and a good recruiter can normally get it done! After all, they aren't talking to me unless the company is feeling pain from a position that been open for awhile or someone needs to be confidentially replaced. I hated confidential replacement. The recruiting work was better, but that means I was putting someone on the street and they did not even know it yet!

Then of course once the agreement is in place you get greedy since now when you place that $150k GM at the old Landmark Aviation MRO at LAX you get paid a minimum of $37,000 in your pocket (or more if you were able to negotiate the higher fee).

The bad part is the company will never tell you all the facts since you are external. And just when you think you know everything about the company, you realize you were wrong again. You simply do not work there! You are external. Then as you cold call all day to find the right person for them, the people you find seem to lie every time they open thier mouth. They tell you one thing, but then you find out it's not true or they just change thier mind and fail to tell you. And that makes you look like a fool to the company. And on top of all that, some competitor is bad mouthing you in order to get the business to compete with you. Yet you have no idea why they talk bad of you when you never met this person and you never had a prior conflict with them. And it goes on...

In the end, a good recruiter gets through all this mud and makes his placement. If it's his own, you pocket all $40k +/- for about 60 days work. And your overhead is not much more than a computer and phone.

The recruiter working for a firm is all commission based. Again, this is sales, not human resources. That's why recruiters find the best. Recruiters are motivated by either the large sum of money they will get or the fear that if they do not produce their numbers this month they will get fired!!! And you will get fired. So if the internal HR guy finds a person before you, that makes you less needed and out a lot of cash and maybe a job. But you take home about 35% of the billings which is still a cool $14,000 for 60 days work. Of course you plan to make at least 2 deals a month to keep your job and you should make 4-5 deals a month as you are pressured to produce at a level that will break you. Remember, in sales you must always do better than your last month, quarter, year, etc. At some point you simply break as one person can do no more and forget about teamwork. The industry is not set up for it. It's too selfish. I won't even get into that part.

The end result is, if you do succeed you are rewarded with a lot of green cash. And then after a few years and a recession or two, you get chest pains...lol.

I actually did it for 9 years. Post 9-11 was tough. 2008 and 2009 was tougher from all those I talk to. I got out in 2007 (kind-of). Still had residual business follow me through all of 2008 which was a gift but in the end a lot of people got shafted including me when the business aviation industry came to a sudden halt.

Over the last couple months, there is an uptick. I even got a few calls of old clients finding me asking me to do work for them. But I simply decline and refer them to some of my x-employees to see if they want to take it on. Interesting enough, they also decline as they all have left the business and now work internal HR within aviation companies.

The good news for third party recruiters is that this is the exact time to get into the business and build your name if you are really into pure cold call commission based sales that is very competitive, yet the financial reward is very large if you are one of the few who succeed.

The bottom line. It is the purest form of cold call sales you have. You go find your potential buyer. Then you go find the product to match the buyer. Then you try to make them like one another to get paid. And since you are dealing with people on all sides of the equation, you will find what was true yesterday on the search is old news as everything changed today and the key players forgot to tell you. Then you start over once again, or worse yet, they just cancel the search and you did not meet your goal for the month. So you get to welcome in micro-managment for the following month since you have numbers to meet. I am sure many of us on here with prior sales careers cn relate.

Okay. That was way off topic. But fun to type up. I love business. Just not that one, although it was an interesting 9 years...lol.

 

[TexasFlyer]

Basically it is a university health systems program. They won't be able to reduce your amount owed, I don't think, but they can look for other ways to get the money, like federal or state programs you may be eligible for. Really it isn't for your situation...

Did you have any Personal Injury Protection coverage on your motorcycle policy? That is a no-fault coverage, so even if the accident was at fault it will still pay out. By default in Texas you need at least $10,000 PIP coverage. You can decline this coverage but you have to do so in writing so most don't.

I assumed that on CareLink. It seems almost like a social services program. But I do have the letter saying I been an unemployed contractor for 2 months with zero income and no benefits. And my bank account is less than I use to make in a day which will make even food tough come later this month. Dollar menus are my only friend right now as it's cheaper than cooking at home! I can't make a $1 McDouble here. So I can show them a real grim picture to see if they can help.

If they can't help retroactively, it's back to negotiating on my own. And I have a feeling, this is exactly what I will have to do. I'll have to put my old sales and negotiation hat on and get to work since at this point I decided to do everything I can to not file medical BK. It's still an option, but the very last one.


And on PIP, I thought I had $25k of it. But I have $0 dollars of it. I got the insurance through the dealership and it seems I signed that away in haste. My policy says I have up to $50k total for medical coverage, of which up to $25k is for a passenger. But this is not PIP, which I assumed it was as I had a friend bring my policy to me at the hospital. This was the limits for a passenger and some other third party. That angered me. But that was also my fault for signing papers to fast at the dealership.

 

[wheelsup]

You bought car insurance from a dealership?

 

[SpiraMirabilis]

Regular Medical Payments coverage is also no-fault coverage, so should pay out regardless of fault. PIP pays more different things, like various non-standard treatments like acupuncture and is a little more flexible regarding certain things. But generally speaking MP (medical payments) and PIP are a like kind of coverage. Texas is one of the few PIP states that also offers MP, because of how similar they are.

If you want to PM me your coverages on your motorcycle policy I could answer more questions. I was a property and casualty (auto/homeowners) underwriter and insurance agent at USAA in San Antonio for years prior to when I started flying.

 

[I_Money]

Oh I know the recruiting game I did IT - in house and agency - both contract and perm. Anyway you look at it I was smiling and dailing.

 

[TexasFlyer]

You bought car insurance from a dealership?

I bought the GAP insurance from them.

But for the cycle insurance, while I signed the papers for the bike they referred me to AIG since they knew an agent there. Then AIG faxed everything over right away for me to sign. Next time I will need to read more carefully what I am signing since I did not fully understand it since I thought I had personal injury of $25k for me and up to $50k total for others. I clearly did not once I called the insurance when I was in the hospital.

Sorry. Should have been more clear on the purchase of insurance item. And I should have just used my normal agent since he caught things before on my auto policy and house policy we decided to add years ago. Just another learning experience.

Agents really do help when they know your personal situation, versus going with a company rep that knows nothing about you.

 

[tilley_205]

22,000 for a helicopter ride . No way does a flight nurse, paramedics, pilots and the helicopter cost that much to operate. It's just another example of hospital over charging their patients.

What do you think they charge an insurance company....? 2 maybe 3 times that?

 

[I_Money]

No they charge the insurance companies less - probably about half. Medicare and Medicard probably pay a quarter or so. There is an article floating around there about how Air Methods is going to struggle with any sort of healthcare reform.