fiddleabout:

this is just a general psa from someone who works in healthcare and used to process claims for a health insurance company and just got a bill for my last surgery that wasn’t just mildly incorrect but doublecharged me to the tune of an extra $15,000 charge:

when you get a medical bill– any medical bill– insist on getting a line-item copy that shows every procedure code, drug, and price and check every single line

• things to check:
• make sure the procedure is actually what you had done
• if it was at a hospital that bills separately for physician services make sure that they aren’t doulbe billing from both for the same thing
• if you’re double ensured ALWAYS make sure they submitted claims to both payers
• also, and this is a more unique situation, but: 
• if you’re going in for something like a surgery or complex procedure of any kind and the hospital is like “your coinsurance will be x, do you want to pay it now?” 
• DO NOT PAY IT THEN
• for this same surgery the hospital was like ‘your insurance pays 80% after the deductible so your calculated 20% balance will be $1800, do you want to pay now”
• i paid $100 and said i’d like to be billed later
• the actual remaining coinsurance i owe is not $1700 because, given the nature of the procedure, it wound up being less expensive because things went quickly
• don’t think that by paying up front you might save money because you’ll be paid in full even if things get complicated/more expensive later on, because they will absolutely bill you for the additional balance anyways

billing is based on medical coding.  medical codes are input by humans.  humans make mistakes.  there are generally automatic filters meant to catch mistakes like this one (duplicative charges) but weird things can happen (an incorrect number in one of the cpt codes for the anesthesiologist listed the work he did as the actual surgical bit instead of just the anesthesia bit) that make filters miss it.

never ever take your medical bills at face value.  review them every single time and if you’re uncertain about something, question it.  the worst that happens is you spend ten minutes on the phone and find out that the bill is correct.  the best that can happen is you don’t pay thousands of dollars that you shouldn’t have been charged in the first place.