Even a day and a half can run thousands or even tens of thousands of dollars, because hospital prices are greatly inflated based on the care that the person actually receives. Of course, the other matter that comes along with these kinds of charges for medical care is on the side of the patient. He or she begins receiving bills for care that he or she feels was not received. Whether the patient pays these bills can have a serious effect on his or her credit rating, and can also cause other problems financially. There may come a time when the patient cannot meet his or her obligations to the hospital because of financial hardship, which produces an argument over whether the patient should even be paying for care that he or she believes has not been received...

If one is not received, should the other be received? That is the question that the patient may be asking, but it does not appear that the hospital is asking the same question. The hospital sends a bill and expects money in return for that bill, but does not focus on whether the care that was expected based on the level of the bill was delivered. Certainly the hospital is owed money for the use of the bed and the monitoring while the patient was admitted, but is this still the case if the hospital admitted the patient without any real grounds to do so? At that point, it would seem as though the patient would have a case for not paying his or her bill. However, simply refusing to pay is not an acceptable practice. Taking legal action in order to force the hospital to reduce the bill would be a much more likely and expected scenario, and would also avoid damage to the patient's credit rating.