DEALING WITH YOUR UNPAID PROFESSIONAL BILLS By Dr. Lalit Kapoor © The issue of patients not paying professional charges of doctors and hospitals keeps sticking out like a sore thumb every now and then. Durable solutions for the same seem to be elusive but anecdotal events keep provoking knee-jerk responses, bordering between the unreasonable and bizarre. The issue came to a boil a couple of years ago. Check out the story. CASE 1 A seriously injured patient, a case of head injury following a metallic object exploding at the factory where he worked, underwent life-saving neurosurgery at a large hospital in Mumbai. He had a fairly good recovery and was fit to be discharged a month later. However, he refused to pay the balance amount of hospital bills amounting to Rs. 1, 93,000/- Instead, he disputed the bill, saying it was excessive, and he had a long list of allegations of negligence against the hospital, doctors, nursing staff, and physiotherapists and so on. He said he wanted to be
