@GuitarStv, I have always been able to get an itemized bill when I ask. It is just difficult or impossible to get prices in advance.
This time I just didn't bother because I'm pretty sure I know what it was. I think it was a mistake on their end.
What's kind of upsetting is that it was a mistake relating to the Colorado Indigent Care Program, which I used to have when I was in straitened circumstances. It's basically copay relief. I have an HDHP through my work, but if I took my kids to the ER, instead of paying, saying $2200*, I would pay like $70. Maybe it was $140.
Anyway, I think they underbilled me for my kid's stitches. If I were living in poverty, getting this mistaken bill from a collection agency might be, y'know, a really big deal! They should be careful with that shit!
*This was the actual bill that led me to get the program. My older child bit his tongue so badly he required stitches, which they can only do in the ER because they're internal (so it wasn't classed as "urgent care"), and he had to be sedated for it. It added up. There was a second ER bill for the other child who also had stitches in his face, but that was maybe half as much because there was no anesthesiologist involved.