Medical Debt - New York

Hey folks,

I have ~$3k in medical debt from an emergency room visit in April. I'm a New Yorker, so I'm aware of S4907a.

Long story short, I got charged $2500 just for being in a room for five minutes, which I obviously disputed with the hospital. Lady on the phone even agreed it was ridiculous but it's technically correct, so I'm refusing to pay on principle. I tried to set up a reasonable payment plan even, but they're not accepting anything less than a few hundred/month, and they weren't accepting any negotiation for lump sum payments.

Long story short, they've informed me that my debt will soon be going to collections if it remains unpaid. Based on my understanding of the laws here, this won't impact my credit at all, and I can also try negotiating with the debt collectors to just resolve this whole thing.

Anybody see any reason why I shouldn't just let this go to collections and resolve it there? Obviously, I could continue to not pay and just hope I don't get brought to court (probably won't for ~$3k anyway), but not paying for at least some of the actual services that were rendered to me feels a bit wrong. On the itemized bill, about $500 of the charges were actual services rendered to me, which I would be comfortable paying.