"Why Am I Paying For Insurance When They're Going To F— Me Over": 23 People Shared The Most Outrageous Medical Bills They Ever Received
This post contains a brief mention of suicidal thoughts.
Recently, I had an MRI for a dislocated disk in my jaw. Insurance said they'd pay 80% of the $8,000 bill, so I was shocked when I got a $8,500 bill from the hospital.
I called immediately, and after being volleyed from one billing department to the next (apparently the hospital had several), I finally got someone who told me the bill wasn't in their system and to consider it a mistake.
Though I was obviously thrilled to not have to pay nearly $10,000 for a scan, I couldn't help but consider those who don't call, question, or demand answers, as well as those who still can't afford to pay 20% of a multi-thousand dollar bill.
So, I asked the BuzzFeed Community to share a time when they received an outrageous medical bill despite the having insurance. The answers were both frustrating and disheartening. Here's what they said:
Some responses have been edited for length/clarity.
1."We owe almost $50,000 of copays for our kid’s stroke in 2022."
"From the moment of triage to their discharge 45 days later, seemingly everything was left out-of-pocket. The surgeon was frank with us. When considering treatment options — either radiation at a later date, or immediate surgery — it was terrible to have to make a choice based on cost. The radiation to dissolve the embolism wouldn’t be as effective, but it would cost less; the surgery could have an 85% success rate, but it would be very, very expensive. We chose the surgery, knowing this debt could be a burden for years.
Thankfully, the surgeon was able to remove the huge clot in their brain, for which were eternally grateful. But even now, we STILL get tons of statements, for the most minor things: surgical underwear, bandages, etc."
2."Due to a blatant coding error, I received a $33,000 hospital bill due in 30 days for my hysterectomy for a completely prolapsed uterus."
"The procedure had been pre-authorized by my insurance company and I paid my portion to the hospital in advance. The hospital submitted a generic skin repair code, which was denied by my insurance. They claim they appealed it twice before they sent me the bill. When I inquired about it, the billing specialists at the hospital knew the code was wrong, 'but management had to look into it.' It’s a game that they play. If one person pays the erroneous bill they win."
3."I was sent a $350 bill for my 2022 Covid shot."
"I am a retired military person with Tri-care. It took one year to clear it up."
4."In college, I needed to get stitches and the RAs in my dorm decided to call me an ambulance despite me asking them not to. An ambulance arrived, took me to the hospital and I got sorted out. Later on I received the bill and the most expensive part of the treatment was the ambulance ride. It was $800!"
Apparently the ambulance was a private ambulance not affiliated with the city paramedics and therefore not covered by my insurance, but how was I (or the RAs who called 911 for me) supposed to know that? And my situation wasn't even that critical. if someone was having a heart attack or had been shot they certainly wouldn't have had time to verify the type of ambulance being sent, so the patient just gets screwed because of details outside of their control."
5."Six months ago I went in for a mammogram. They found a cyst and advised me that I can either wait six months for another mammogram and THEN they can tell me if it's benign or not, or I can get a biopsy and find out immediately. I got the biopsy so I could begin treatment if it was cancer. That biopsy cost me $5,000!"
"I called my insurance and they told me that it was up to the provider what they charge. I called my provide and THEY said the insurance pays what it pays, but they would offer me a discounted rate if I paid the bill in full. I did that, but then got ANOTHER charge a month later of the remaining amount, as if they never offered me a discount.
I called my provider and they put it in review, and then came back saying that I LIED about the discount and that I was 'never offered the discount.' So now I am out $5,000 AND I'm being called a liar. I just had my six month mammogram, and the results are 'probably' not cancer. FLAMES! FLAMES OUT OF THE SIDES OF MY FACE!"
6."I have POTS, a disability that can cause me to faint. After several instances in high school where I fainted and an ambulance was called to take me to the nearest hospital just for them to tell me they found nothing wrong with me and then charge my mother thousands of dollars, I started informing everyone I knew that if I ever faint, don't call an ambulance unless something is clearly wrong."
"Well a couple months ago, I fainted at my Pilates studio. Despite knowing of my condition and my preference to not have an ambulance called, they were still legally required to call one for me and they'd just have to wait for me to wake up and refuse it.
When I woke up and before I was even fully coherent they were informing me of the ambulance and I immediately refused it. The employee on the phone immediately relayed to the EMTs that I was awake and did not want an ambulance, but they informed her that since my BP was 'concerningly low' (which is normal for my condition) they were coming in anyways even though I was refusing care.
Two separate ambulances and EMT teams showed up. I refused all services and refused to go with either of them. Despite this, my insurance still sent me a bill weeks later for $300 after they had oh so graciously covered the other $2,000 I'd been charged for an ambulance I did not need, want, or take."
7."$69,000 for a C-section birth and one week in the NICU!"
8."I had bariatric bypass surgery. My wife’s insurance paid for the surgery. Turns out I was double covered under my insurance at work. My wife's insurance TOOK BACK THEIR PAYMENT and said I had to submit to my insurance first."
"By the time my insurance denied the claim my wife’s employer switched insurance companies and the original account no longer existed, leaving us on the hook for $24,000 in medical bills AFTER THE INSURANCE COMPANY AGREED AND PAID THE CLAIM ONCE. Now we don’t know what to do as everyone is pointing fingers and no one wants to pay."
9."In my 20s, I came to a very low point with my mental health. Un-alive-ingly low. I was brought to the emergency room and thankfully they resuscitated me. But then I was transferred into the mental health deptartment. After three days, you can bring in a judge and argue for release. I did that. They said 'nah dog.' So I was in the hospital against my will for the better part of a month."
"I needed that time to get my shit together, but imagine my entire fucking horror when a bill for nearly $172,000 showed up. Because of the nature of my diagnosis, having been born with that condition, the insurance company considered it a an undisclosed pre-existing condition. I am lucky BEYOND MEASURE that my family was able to pay it. But what kind of monsters see someone who doesn't want to alive and says 'pay me bitch.'"
10."Needed an injection in my neck for a herniated disc. Called my insurance and was assured I did not need prior authorization. Six months later I got a bill for $2,300."
"They claimed I needed to show I had tried other avenues before the shot. I had done PT and prescription medication. (No one ever told me this over the phone when I called about authorization, btw)."
11."When I was 18, I went to the ER for a horrible pain in my abdomen and they gave me meds, an ultrasound, and a full exam, and I was lucky at the time that I had Tricare (military insurance) through my parents, so we paid our $25 co-pay and left when they didn’t find anything. A few months later I get a bill for $350..."
"...they said the doctor I saw in the ER was out of network even though the hospital itself was in. Turns out, the doctor had been there as like a loan out and they were charging me through her practice. Luckily we were able to get it worked out and we owed them nothing but it took MONTHS to untangle."
12."I call to make sure that all my meds would be covered, and I double and triple checked."
"So far, I had to fight a $600 bill for pulmonology, $700 for Ozempic, and I just paid almost $300 for my nebulizer steroid to treat my chronic pneumonia! Why am I paying for workplace insurance when they're just going to fuck me over?!"
—libm
13."My daughter has horrific nosebleeds and this particular one wouldn’t stop. I live up the block from a hospital. Paid my copay of $150."
"The nurse took her to a room and weighed her. Looked up her nose with a flashlight and advised her what to do when the nosebleed happens again. Slapped with a $450 bill. Nothing else but the use of his flashlight in her nose!"
14."I had just had a baby. It was a traumatic birth from a uterus rupture that occurred by the baby pushing through my precious c-section scar. My little girl had to spend about a week in the NICU."
"During that time the on call doctor came to our daughters NICU room to let me know that the pharmacy had made a mistake and the antibiotics they may have given her had 10x the amount of blood thinner than it was supposed to have. They needed to do a brain ultrasound to make sure she had no brain bleeds. They discovered she was fine, she never got the last bag of antibiotics with the overdose, and then sent us a $3,000 bill for the brain ultrasound."
—anonymous
15."While in medical school I started to have pretty severe testicular pain. I knew the possibility of having something serious called testicular torsion and the importance of getting a STAT ultrasound (without prompt care I could lose a testicle)."
"A month later my bill for the ultrasound was $7,000! The hospital refused to budge with insurance. I had to 'settle' for a cash payout of $1,000. Mind you, this should not have cost more than $250. To add insult to injury, I worked for that very hospital prior to med school."
—anonymous
16."A few years ago, I was experiencing what I thought was a zit trying to come to a head and then disappearing multiple times near my left temple where the arm of my glasses sat. I later learned it was an infected pore and had it surgically removed to help with the pain."
"When I received my bill, it was nearly $4,000! When I talked to my insurance, I found out that they had covered the max of what they could at about $2,000 and the rest was my responsibility to pay off. Making minimum payments, it took me seven months to pay in full. I shudder to think about how much I would've paid had I not had insurance, but this was already eye-popping enough."
—anonymous
17."I got a $7,000 bill in August for a routine, uncomplicated outpatient surgery that was medically necessary."
"The bill was the facility fee and both my PPO insurance (which has very good coverage) and hospital said the charges were appropriate based on my benefits... I tried to apply for financial aid but couldn’t find one of the documents requested. Three months after receiving the bill, I paid it off because I didn’t want it to be sent to collections"
18."Went to the emergency in 2004 with outrageous pain in my abdomen area. Waited three hours, during which time I tried to knock myself out because the pain was so unbearable. Finally get seen. I tell them I think I have a kidney stone, but they say no because I didn’t have back pain previously. So, we proceed to do tests… X RAYS, MRI, sonogram. The VERY LAST test they do is on my urine, which shows super high levels of whatever you have a lot of with a kidney stone. They then look back at the X-ray and can clearly see the stone, but earlier they thought it was a 'glitch' in the X-ray because it was so much larger than a typical kidney stone."
"So, long story short, I spent six hours in agony waiting to find out what was wrong. The bill WITH INSURANCE was $8,500 because of all the different unnecessary tests. And guess what? The LAST test they did (urine) and the one that actually proved what the issue was, was the cheapest by far. Not sure why they didn’t start with that one?"
19."My 13-year-old son had been very sick for a few days. High fever and was not eating or drinking. I took him into an urgent care and his temp was over 103. The urgent care gave him a massive dose of Tylenol to try to get his fever down and it wasn’t working."
"After a while he became more unresponsive and they told us he needed an emergency room... I got to the emergency room with my son, they took his vitals, his temp was at 104. The doctor came in and said, 'Well, there is nothing I can do about it. I won’t give him fluids because if he can swallow he can do that at home.' That was it. We were told we were discharged. We were there for seven minutes and they took vitals and we saw a doctor for less than one minute.
It was several thousand dollars and after insurance I had to pay them a little over $800. I called them to discuss it and they said if we were seen, even for under eight minutes, they had to charge us. That was it. I will never go back to that hospital and will always go to a more local and smaller one because they actually care about patients."
—anonymous
20."I have stage 4C medullary thyroid cancer. I max out my maximum out of pocket every year."
—anonymous
21."have a rare mutation of this rare cancer and my doctor ordered a genetics test 'just to look for any other possible mutation that might be helpful to know about.' I wasn’t told a possible cost, I wasn’t asked if I wanted to do it and it wasn’t submitted to insurance for pre-authorization."
"Nothing useful was found in the test and insurance denied it. The hospital sent me a bill for $11,500. I informed them I wouldn’t be paying a single penny (for the reasons above). They asked for payment again and I replied that I’d happily see them in court and I’ll make them into a huge national news story. They then erased the $11,500 charge for the test from my bill."
—Anonymous
22."I broke my leg skiing a couple years ago. I had good insurance with a really low deductible and they covered a lot of my bills except a couple."
"I had to learn how to walk again... Then we got the bill a couple months later. $1,500. My insurance covered $70 of the bill. We appealed and they covered more of it.
I was going to physical therapy twice a week for months because most of the muscles in my leg had atrophied by the time my stitches came out a month and a half after surgery... I was only given a certain amount of physical therapy sessions a year. We had to keep having my PT send in requests for more until the insurance company eventually said no more. I still don’t have the full bend back in my leg."
—anonymous
23.And finally, "My son had a major unexpected health emergency that resulted in a week-long ICU stay."
"With insurance, his life sustaining-medication (which put him in kidney failure) was $8,000 a month and the overall hospital bill when it was all said and done was $750,000. Not sure wtf I was paying insurance $600 a month for since it still financially ruined my family."
—anonymous
Now we'd like to hear from you. Tell us about a time when you received an outrageous medical bill despite having insurance in the comments below. Or, if you'd like to remain anonymous, you can use this Google form. Your response may be featured in an upcoming post.
