Hello friends, looking for some advice.
My wife had a non-emergency surgical procedure in Nov 2019. We had Blue Cross Blue Shield at the time. We lived in MA, so pretty great coverage. We talked through the financial aspects of the surgery with BCBS and the hospital prior to the procedure to make sure we weren’t surprised later (you can see where this is going). Both the hospital and BCBS assured us that we were covered fully. They talked to each other. All seemed well. We were both pretty nervous about the surgery and paranoid about the bill. After the surgery, we paid the $250 copay and were on our way.
I changed jobs recently and we have a new insurance provider. Of course, the hospital sent us a $19,000 bill, now that I have no agent with BCBS anymore. Apparently, they have been working with BCBS for the last 18 months to try to get the bill paid, but to no avail. I highly doubt this because this hospital is very new and very disorganized (double charging us, changing appointment times last minute, etc.). I also find it hard to believe that for the last 18 months, we haven’t heard about this negotiation process. I think it’s far more likely that this bill was sitting idle, untouched and forgotten.
So now we have a he said she said situation. I’m telling the hospital that we did everything in our power to ensure our ducks were dotted and our squares were crossed. They’re asking for details, like who did I talk to, when was it, etc. They’re building a case against BCBS, I suppose. But these conversations were 20 months ago and I don’t have access to any online portal that I used, because our insurance provider was changed. In my conversations with both the hospital and BCBS, I never even felt a whiff of suspicion that we’d be on the hook for the bill, so I didn’t get anything in writing (that’s the real lesson here, of course).
They’re telling us to fill out a financial assistance application to negate / reduce the bill. Here are my questions.
1) Would filling out this application be ‘admitting’ that we also feel we’re on the hook for this bill?
2) If we get this bill eliminated through this process, will our credit scores be affected?
3) Is there some sort of statute of limitations on how old a bill can be to be charged for?
TIA Reddit, need your help here.
TLDR: Ghost bill from 1.5 years ago sent to us, I’ve changed providers, was told the procedure was covered but it wasn’t.
submitted by /u/culturewarcrimes
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Hello friends, looking for some advice. My wife had a non-emergency surgical procedure in Nov 2019. We had Blue Cross Blue Shield at the time. We lived in MA, so pretty great coverage. We talked through the financial aspects of the surgery with BCBS and the hospital prior to the procedure to make sure we weren’t surprised later (you can see where this is going). Both the hospital and BCBS assured us that we were covered fully. They talked to each other. All seemed well. We were both pretty nervous about the surgery and paranoid about the bill. After the surgery, we paid the $250 copay and were on our way. I changed jobs recently and we have a new insurance provider. Of course, the hospital sent us a $19,000 bill, now that I have no agent with BCBS anymore. Apparently, they have been working with BCBS for the last 18 months to try to get the bill paid, but to no avail. I highly doubt this because this hospital is very new and very disorganized (double charging us, changing appointment times last minute, etc.). I also find it hard to believe that for the last 18 months, we haven’t heard about this negotiation process. I think it’s far more likely that this bill was sitting idle, untouched and forgotten. So now we have a he said she said situation. I’m telling the hospital that we did everything in our power to ensure our ducks were dotted and our squares were crossed. They’re asking for details, like who did I talk to, when was it, etc. They’re building a case against BCBS, I suppose. But these conversations were 20 months ago and I don’t have access to any online portal that I used, because our insurance provider was changed. In my conversations with both the hospital and BCBS, I never even felt a whiff of suspicion that we’d be on the hook for the bill, so I didn’t get anything in writing (that’s the real lesson here, of course). They’re telling us to fill out a financial assistance application to negate / reduce the bill. Here are my questions. 1) Would filling out this application be ‘admitting’ that we also feel we’re on the hook for this bill? 2) If we get this bill eliminated through this process, will our credit scores be affected? 3) Is there some sort of statute of limitations on how old a bill can be to be charged for? TIA Reddit, need your help here. TLDR: Ghost bill from 1.5 years ago sent to us, I’ve changed providers, was told the procedure was covered but it wasn’t.
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