About 6 months ago I was referred by my physician to the local hospital for a routine test. The center at the hospital requires a pre-authorization with insurance and their policy is to send a letter with the detailed pricing on it. I received a call saying that they authorized my insurance and it would cost me $250 at the time of the test. I arrived, paid the amount and did the test. 2 months later I received a bill for $6k. It turns out that they did not authorize my insurance or they got me mixed up with another patient. I confirmed with them it was their screw up, there never was a quote letter and my file says in it that insurance was pre-authorized. My insurance refuses to cover it stating that it "is not a covered procedure".
I contested the bill with the hospital. Everyone I spoke with agreed that someone screwed up and that the bill should be modified but they just keep on not doing anything about it. It is like their "dispute" procedure is to do nothing then call back the next week to harass me to pay. The $6k is the full uninsured price I never agreed to. If they had even tried to offer me the insured price I likely would have paid by now. So now it is 4 months after I received the bill, the account is still supposedly in "dispute" but I just received a "final" notice that says it is going to collections.
I'm not sure what my next steps are. I am ready to hire a lawyer to send a nasty letter but I am not sure what the law is on this or if there is a better way to handle it. I would have been happy to pay something for it a few months ago but since then I hit my out-of-pocket max with the same hospital billing out over $150k.
What is my best option for escalating this dispute?
[Edit to add, I am in Texas]
Submitted October 15, 2019 at 07:32PM by thosedarnkids https://ift.tt/2BbA2ml
