TL:DR I incurred about $50k in emergency medical bills in the US. My European travel insurance has paid $15k and says that's all they will pay. Providers are chasing my family and me for remainder of the bills. What do I do next?
(Trying to obscure some details so Big Insurance can't track me down)
I'm an American living in Europe for several years. My family is still in the US. When I was visiting, I had to have emergency surgery. I have fully paid up travel insurance (taken out in the country I live in) which specifically covers up to $1m in US medical treatment. I phoned before going to ER, described symptoms, they said go for it, it would be covered, send them the bills.
I tried to avoid giving my family address, but ER needed ID and they took it from my drivers licence. I gave ER and hospital my European address and full details of travel insurance.
Several months later, my family starts getting medical bills in dribs and drabs. $5k for imagining, $10k for anesthaeology, and so on. All different providers, no overall bill for surgery. I sent them to travel insurance, they said they were "processing." Start to get chased for nonpayment, I phone providers and say it's with insurance, they note it on the account and take it out of "past due." I chase travel insurance.
Repeat over a few months and several providers. I finally get one big statement from hospital group saying overall bill is about $50k, and $15k has been paid, so I owe the remaining $35k. I sent this to the travel insurance company, and they say they're paying. They costed the procedure based on Congressional Budget Office figures, added 50% to those, and paid. In their minds, they have paid "reasonable" claims. They wrote to the hospital saying:
"Please also note that the insurer substantially disputes the debt and that any debt established to be due will be paid by the insurer not the policyholder... should you or your client choose to bring a claim against the policyholder, it will be vigorously defended by us at our cost."
They also told me: "It would, in our view, be a clear breach of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act for [the hospital to persue your family] and you would be able to report them to the Federal Trade Commission... we have discharged the debt but dispute the amount billed."
But my family and I are still getting past due statements. I'm worried this could ruin my really good credit score in the US (want the option to move back in future), that it could hurt family at my permanent address, that I genuinely owe the money. Insurance reassures me that providers will eventually back down, but I'm not convinced (seeing so many people go bankrupt from medical expenses tells me that they won't).
What do I do? If I raided my retirement account, I could probably just about pay this, if that's what's necessary. But it's frustrating because I paid for insurance to avoid doing just that, and intentionally got a policy that included a big chunk of US medical, just in case.
Thanks in advance for any thoughts!
Submitted October 08, 2017 at 10:19AM by travelinsurancewoes http://ift.tt/2y8zgGp
