I am so livid right now. A dentist showed up as in-network but was at a facility. I've never been to one before. I waited almost an hour for a standard & may I say brief teeth cleaning. Prior to the 45min wait the woman at the front desk said all I owed her was $50 because that was my deductible.
Now I check online & they charged me for an out of network dentist bc according to the UHC rep when providers see u have a PPO that accepts out of network providers they still accept u (for obvious reasons). This facility/office was like 3 miles from my house. After the fact I know they're a bunch of criminals but common sense WHY the flying f**k would I pay for an out of network provider 10min from my house, wait 45min AND be subject to a shitty standard cleaning?! I am so mad right now. I didn't know I had to make sure they only scheduled & charged me for the in network provider bc I thought it was a given...
So bottom line. My claim says I owe them $217. How much will this effect my credit (780s) if I tell them to FUCK themselves & lick my @$$?! Because I am so livid I am seriously considering. Apparently I can appeal but I doubt that sounds successful. Oh and they charged me for fluoride which apparently costs $80 bc I'm over 14! And this $50 deductible I paid wasn't even documented on the claim. I def have that receipt but wtf?!
Mustachians, please tell me the worse case scenario if I just refuse to pay, do the appeal etc. or wtf should I do? Words cannot even express right now. I'm thinking about doing a chargeback on the $50 deductible on my credit card, too... Idk I'm so upset that I'm really just not thinking logically.
Sucks, and I don't have advice, although I suspect that the general answer will be challenge it, then pay it, because you care about your credit more than they do. FYI, you can also challenge the place that billed you once you're done with the insurance company, and maybe that place will make some accommodation.
I wanted to respond though because I've had a very similar situation happen with an emergency room visit, and that is a high dollar issue. I have probably the most widely accepted insurance plan with the most providers in the United States (thanks, federal government). When I hurt my shoulder badly, but no so badly that I couldn't get a ride to 10 other emergency rooms within a 15 mile radius, i went to the local emergency room. They told me they were a provider and it was covered (although they at first didn't want to commit until they had admitted me). I told them I wasn't walking through the door until I got a firm answer because I could go to 10 other places.
That time, everything worked out. Fast forward 3 years later, and I had a similar accident. I went to the same place, same insurance, and had the same stand off with them about not walking through the door until I got a final answer. Then I get a bill for close to $1,000.
What happened? Apparently, just because the hospital and emergency room are preferred providers does not mean that everyone who might be there is a preferred provider. So, some doctor walks into your room while you're there, the X-ray tech looking at the films while you're there, if any of those people are not also preferred providers, you're paying their full bill.
I called my insurance company livid because, as I told them, I didn't know what further steps I could have taken to ensure that my insurance covered it, and there were covered medical providers everywhere so what could I do to make sure that I saw any one of those providers. They told me nothing, and the bill only got adjusted because the doctor in question applied to become a provider for my insurance retroactively. And the insurance company was very clear that if he had not become a provider, I would have been responsible for the bill.
That situation is ridiculous. I've talked to a bunch of people about it, and some say that you have to basically challenge any person who tries to walk into the room to see if they're a provider for your insurance (a little tough if you're in bad shape, by the way), and that still doesn't cover someone in the back doing lab work or X-rays or something.
In any event, I realized I just hijacked the thread, but when I read what happened to you, it reminded me of that incident and how helpless I felt to get my insurance to cover something that--if anyone had given me straight information up front--I could have found any number of providers that would have been covered.
Ugh.