I have a hospital bill to pay. Can I just send them my check in dollars (converted from the cost in Euros)?

Depends which country and which bank they use. The fee for them in Germany would be about at least 7.50€ (citibank) and more.

However, no problem.

Thanks logos. It's Amsterdam and I don't know the bank they use.

There are a number of ways;

You can have your bank issue a "Foreign Currency" check in Euros for the actual amount.

You can get wiring instructions from the European Vendor and have your Bank wire Euros in full payment.

If you send a check in $US dollars (based on latest conversion rates) the vendor may want you to reimbuse them for any conversion fees assessed to them by their bank and an additional amount to cover any differences in exchange rates between the date you wrote the check and the date the net funds are credited to the vendors account. In this situation you might have to send one or more additional payments to get a "zero" balance.

The most efficient to to send an International Wire.

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However, no problem.
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that's between you and the person you owe. you have contracted for services in euro and you are billed in euro. nobody can tell you whether or not they will accept a foreign demoninated cheque. perhaps they will just be happy you are paying as collecting from foreigners can be difficult....but again, nobody can anticipate that.

Even if in Euros, the hospital might not take a check from an American bank. Inquire about wiring the funds from your bank to theirs. All done electronically, no check, postage, delivery is assured. There will be a fee for the wire, about $35-$40, and whatever the exchange rate from USD (your account) to Euro (the hospital account).

Get their bank name, address, account number, Swift Code and you should be good to go!

Do they take credit cards?

Certainly!!, they will accept it. It's no problem for them. You take you check to the bank and are credited in Euros not USD. How much they get is another question. It may not be the full amount, so they'll inform you.

On the bill will be a bank account number I expect along with the name of the bank they use. It will most likely be either ABN AMRO, Rabobank or ING, possibly Fortis or SNS. Is there a yellow form on the bottom of the bill? If so it will have the account number there "rekening nummer". Usually in the small print about the hospital it will include something like Rabobank 10.21.49.xxx, which is the bank and account number. It may even include the IBAn 9international Bank account number which will make wiring it easier.
All banks will charge a lot for a dollar cheque especially as cheques are not a normal way of paying for things anyway in the Netherlands (we don't have cheques here at all).
Why not send the hospital an e-mail and ask them how to pay or use Western Union?.

Pity you didn't have insurance - you could have just handed the bill to them to sort out for you.

Go with Sandi's plan. Get their bank name, routing number, and account code. Go to your bank and have it wire the money from your account. That will cost you about $35. It takes about 3 days to NL. It's easy.

If you are going to send a wire, make sure you select the option where you pay all of the transfer charges. I got caught on that one once.

Your other option is a bank draft in euros. It will cost them nothing to cash and is accepted at all major european banks. Costs me about $6 for it. You mail it, and it is possbile to get money back if it gets lost. Money is drawn in your bank's partner in the destinator's country.

I would NOT be surprised at all, if a check or maybe a bank draft would be the cheapest option (except for using a CC).

The banks can handle it without problems. I recieved a number of checks from the US, all you need to do is fill out their form and send it to the bank. Never had a problem and wasn't charged more than 7.50€ for it.

My only concern with cheques would be...if in $, what rate will the bank where the destinator cashes it charge/use as exchnage rate. Secondly, if cheque was in euros, would there still be a charge to cash a foreign cheque?

I would not want to ask receiver..."please go to your bank to figure out the charges so I can add them to the total". I'd prefer to make it easy for them by sending them something I know to cost them nothing.

Is it simpler than I think to send cheques to foreign destinations?

In the Netherlands, if the hospital will accept a cheque, which they may well not, it will cost at least €10 to cash it. Cheques are not used in the Netherlands and are therefore expensive to deal with.
See if you have the bank account number etc and transfer the money to the hospital account that way. make sure you pay all costs or you will get another bill. Also include any "factuurnummer" in the payment details so they know it is from you.

There will always be a charge from the bank, even if it's in €. Postbank charged 1.50€ per check (in USD) until a few years ago, today they charge 15€, twice as much as Citibank.

Both banks Citi and Postbank used the interbank rate, it really wasn't any effort for me at all, just that I didn't know the exact amount I got in advance.

2 days later, my bank statement showed the exact amount.

Thank you everyone! Especially since I just noticed the typo in my title. Yikes!

hetismij, I do have insurance. They told me to pay it and send them a copy of everything and they will remiburse me (minus $50). I'm sure that does not include the cost to do this. Thank you for the explanation of the bill. Now I just have to decide which way to do this. I hate to spend the money to wire the payment. Maybe the bank draft in € . I need to give this some thought. And the bill has everything except an email address!

If you can't do credit cards (I hope you can), I think the bank draft is the easiest way. I can get them for $5 plus a 1% markup over the interbank rate.