Jimmy, sorry to hear about your woes. But thank heavens you found this out before your surgery.
I’ve had a couple of cysts on my kidneys that were discovered when I had an ultrasound of my liver and needed to be monitored. I had these done regularly in both Las Vegas and New York and my copay was $35-$50.
When I returned to Utah, I scheduled one, jumped through all the hoops because I was COBRA-ing my Union insurance (BCBS) until I qualified for Medicare and had the procedure done. I should have been suspicious when the co-pay was $150, but we all know how insurance had been heading the last 20 years.
So, a couple of weeks later I get a check from BCBS for $1800 (no direct pay because they were out of network) and a bill from the provider for $5K.
Because they told me I was pre-approved I told them to take a hike, that my $150 and BCBS’ $1800 were all they were going to get. They stopped calling after a year, when they no doubt wrote off the debt.