THE LARGE PARAGRAPH IS THE SITUATION - THE QUESTION IS BELOW IF YOU DON'T WANT TO SAVE THE READING - THANKS

My wife had a spinal tumor last year just before Christmas. After what insurance covered we owe somewhere in the range of 12-14k. It's split up to different doctors/offices billing departments (4k to one office, around 1k for 7 different bills, and another large one). Now we've set up payments which amount to about $160 a month. Problem is she has been laid off since before the tumor and we're not having much luck with jobs. Mine is OK for now but I know if they're ever late even once they'll toss them to collections and hurt our credit, the only thing not taken yet by our hard times. Basically I want to pay them off just in case my income falters or something happens. Not to mention the monthly "payment" will take ten years to pay off. Scrounging to come up with more is really only worth it if there is a benefit to eating Ramon Noodles for a year, lol.

HERE IS THE ACTUAL QUESTION

Has anyone heard of offering the hospitals a lesser amount in whole than the bill in a way they might accept? I'd imagine they'd be interested in say $800-900 (less if possible) now for an $1100 bill rather than $10/month for the next 10 years. I know collection agencies often do this but we couldn't afford to hurt our credit and let it go to one. I'm just hoping there is some sort of precedent for such a situation. We plan to scrounge extra and knock out one debt every few months if we can. It would just be easier/possible there were a greater benefit to it. Thanks

Certainly - people offer a settlement for less than the full amount all the time. Your logic makes sense and hopefully the hospital will also think so.