Gasp. Patient gets $44m bill

Patients of a New York City hospital are getting billed for tens of millions of dollars because of a computer error.

Unemployed doorman Alexis Rodriguez says he almost became ill when he received a $US44.8 million ($A43.7 million) bill from the Bronx-Lebanon Hospital Center.

Rodriguez told the New York Daily News that he was hospitalised last year with pneumonia and was afraid the bill was legitimate.

It turns out the company that prepares the bills had mistakenly put the invoice number in the space where the invoice amount should go.

The billing company is telling patients to ignore the multimillion-dollar bills.

It says it will send out corrected ones.

And Mr Rodriguez will be expected to pay about $300.