My wife and I just had our second kid and all the bills are rolling in. We received a bill from the lab, showing that our insurance paid $1800 of, but the total was $2800, so we owe $1000.
We specifically told the doc office, at the beginning of our visits, that we did not want to do any optional testing (for down-syndrome or cystic fibrosis screening) because it wouldn't change our mind about having the baby. But they never asked us to put anything in writing.
I called the doc's office today, explained the situation, they said the best they could do is try to negotiate the cost with the lab and that we'll probably still owe something. The nurse that I spoke with admitted that they knew we didn't want the test, and couldn't explain why the test was run. The pregnancy was totally normal, so they had no medical reason to do the test without our consent, and again it's an optional test.
On top of submitting the test without our consent, no one informed us that it was being run, and no one said that it was an expensive test. I get that they don't know exact costs, but these guys deal with the lab on a daily basis, and they should have a ballpark cost—and they should have told us about that cost before running the optional test, even if we did consent.
Is there anything we can do to get out of this bill completely? Or is this just another fun loophole of the US health care system?
Submitted October 11, 2018 at 11:05PM by Hawkburr https://ift.tt/2ORFwuL
