Yes, they do have room to bring the charges down. He needs to make his case though. I visited the ER one time because the local emergent care wasn't open at 2 am. They charged me about 6k at first. When a lady from the hospital called so I could set up financing with them, I told her I would've suffered instead of coming in had I known it would cost so much. She knocked my bill down to 4k after that. Not much but it's something. (My visit only needed topical lidocaine, $800 by itself from the ER btw).