<prompt> Human: Recently our 2 YO son was sent to the ER by his pediatrician following a particularly nasty cold that left him wheezing and short of breath. This meant a mandatory ambulance ride, 3 day2 night stay in the ER, and numerous tests and follow-up appointments. In the end he bounced right back and just needed breathing treatments for a couple days, but hey, doctors orders. Despite my general displeasure about all of this being decided for us, I am glad hes fine, better safe than sorry, yada yada. But of course, the bills just arrived. So far were looking at a 600 physicians fee, which was billed by the on-call doctor at the ER, plus a 2600 hospital bill, plus the as-yet-unknown ambulance bill, which Im guessing will be in the 600-800 range. So lets round up and call it 4000 owed for this chest cold. Note that this is after insurance -- we are on a no-premium, high-deductible plan that has typically worked quite well for us, but looks like it finally caught up with us :Anyway, 4k out of pocket. Ive got 2k in an healthcare FSA for just such a situation, which leaves me 2k to cough up on my own. I havent been saving much in my budgets medical category, even though I should have for just this kind of scenario. I was counting on the FSA to absorb any typical medical costs throughout the year. Weve done this for several years and always come out on top. Of course I knew this was always a possibility, but you win some you lose some. So yeah, Ill owe about 2k out of pocket. What Im trying to decide is if I should pull this from my emergency fund which will basically wipe it out, or simply rely on the hospitals budget billing to let me pay it off over time. Right now Im kicking 100mo to my EF, so I could simply leave the EF in place at its current value and start paying that 100mo to the hospital. I could probably find a little extra to pay, lets call it 150 total, which would get the bill paid off in about a year. I havent contacted the hospital yet to verify their budget billing options, but Im pretty sure it would be interest free as long as I met a certain threshold per month.Thoughts? Would you nuke your EF for this and rebuild it, or keep the EF in place and pay over time to the hospital? Im leaning toward the latter; lump-sum EF cash may be needed for something else at any time, and going into CC debt would suck a lot worse than the hospitals interest-free budget billing.  <response>: Something that hasnt been said here: Now that you have hit your deductible, make sure to get any lingering medical issues checked out before the end of the year so you dont end up paying more out of pocket later! 