Do I have to pay a medical bill when the ER never submitted it for an insurance claim?
My husband went into cardiac failure while we were traveling. He was taken by ambulance to the nearest hospital ER. I gave his insurance information at the time of service. About a month later, I received a phone call from the billing department requesting more information. I complied, giving them what they asked for along with copies of our Medicare Advantage insurance card. Months later, the billing office called again for the same information. They apologized and said that someone must have misplaced or lost the information. So I gave it again. Two years later, I received a bill for $3,625.00 . They said I failed to respond to their attempts to collect the balance due. They asked me to pay it in full no later than 10 days or be sent to collection. I noticed the insurance information on the statement. It also showed that the insurance was never billed and they were billing me for the full amount. I then called the billing office and asked why our insurance was never billed. She had no answer and said that she would send it back to billing and find out what happened. She told me to call back in three weeks. Here we go again. It has been a little over two years. Everything in our lives has changed since then and we no longer have this coverage. We are disabled seniors living only on social security. We have very little to live on. The hospital accepted our insurance at the time of service. If the insurance was billed in the beginning, this would have been paid in full.