Damn you're kinda screwed. If you had talked to the hospital earlier on they probably would have let you get off by paying barely any of it. Now its too late, they won't deal with you once its in collections. And collections won't deal with you since they've served you. Best you can hope for is talking with collections and maybe they'll have mercy and let you pay most of it. If you let it go to court and lose it'll end up costing probably over $3,000- 3500. They can only garnish a certain percentage for a few weeks, then they resue you for the rest and add more fees and they do this over and over. I had a $1300 emergency room visit turn into $2300 after repeated garnishments back when I was like 20. Sad part is I could've gotten it all thrown out had I talked to the hospital when the first bills came instead of ignoring them. Ppl misinformed me the hospital couldn't do anything... I learned the hardest way possible oh yes they can