I Went To The Accts Payable Dept Of The Hospital Yesterday To Pay My Mom's Bill's And Found This....

[WCIL]

24. We are dealing with this now

My son was attacked in the street in his college town last March. Luckily, he escaped with just bruises and a broken nose. We paid the hospital bill in May and considered the matter closed.

Last month, we got a bill for $2200 from a medical billing group in Texas (we live in Illinois and the incident happened in Missouri). We drove over to the hospital, talked to the billing department extensively, and it was worked out that we actually owed them $217, which we promptly sent. A week later, we got another bill from the billing group, with a balance of $1983 and a threat of legal action against our son. Another trip over to the hospital, only to find out that our insurance (Blue Cross/Blue Shield) is not a preferred provider for the ER doctor's group, even though the hospital's insurance is BC/BS as well. The hospital is wrangling with them right now, and their advice to us was "call and yell at them and they will back down. We hope to have all this negotiated by this time next year". Um, what?
No one seems to know what is going on. Luckily for us, my husband is an attorney and his partner does extensive insurance work, but I wonder what clueless people (like me) do - I assume just pay the bill, which is why the insurance companies get away with it.