Help! No Insurance, dislocated shoulder, now have $17k bill…

TL:DR

From Texas, vacation in San Diego. Got a dislocated shoulder and went to the hospital. I have no health insurance FYI. Doctor said to get X-rays, CT scan and a EKG. Doctor confirmed dislocated shoulder. Popped the shoulder back in and left with arm in sling. Now I have a $17k medical bill.

On vacation a month ago in San Diego. Got a dislocated shoulder. Went to the hospital.

Keep in mind I do not have Health Insurance btw. I let them know this. Doctor said I would need X-rays (understandable), CT scan (not sure why?) and a EKG (again, not sure why?) Im no doctor so I just did what the doctor said.

After all these tests were done the doctor said I do in fact have aa dislocated shoulder. Doctor recommended to give me pharmaceutical fentanyl and "put me under" to put my shoulder back in place. Unfortunately, this is only when red flags popped up for me. I asked "Can you pop my shoulder back without all that…I have a decent pain tolerance?" Doctor said "Ummm…we caaaaan." I said immediately "Let's do that then."

I told the guy getting my billing info that I don't have insurance. He wanted to verify my SSN, name and address. I confirmed it was correct.

About 4-5 mins later Doctor got someone else to help pop my shoulder back. Put my arm in a sling and I was discharged.

A week later I get a bill online (No physically mailed yet) for roughly $34,000 and with a $17,000 "Self-pay" discount. No idea the cost would be anywhere remotely this much. The balance is now the remaining $17k. Still no idea it would be this much. I looked at the details of the bill and I saw the CT scan for the Head and neck. I had to google what all a CT scan and a EKG includes. From what I saw EKG is more or less dealing with you heart.

Then I saw a line item on my bill that was "ER Lvl V" (CPT 99285) which was almost $8,000 alone. No idea what that was so I googled that as well.

Found out that this is the highest level of service they could charge and was needed if there was any surgery done (which there wasn't) or if multiple tests were needed which turns out to be 3 or more tests.

This is when I realized that these guys were taking advantage of my ignorance of the medical field.

I called the following Monday to call the support line to make a dispute about my bill. I gave the rep each line item I have a dispute with along with the line item number aka (CPT 99285) etc. The rep said it will take about 30 days for a doctor to call me back about this dispute and to use my billing number to reference the dispute if I callback before I get a call,

Tomorrow Monday Sept 16th will be 3 weeks from when I initially called to make this dispute.

I was going to call back tomorrow to follow up.

How often does this happen? Should I call to follow up tomorrow? Will this bill go to collections if I don't pay due to the pending dispute? Is this a lost cause?

This happened in San Diego and I'm from Houston, TX if it makes any difference.

I willing to pay for the X-rays and the services I needed but it just seems like I'm being scammed here.

Am I wrong for thinking this?

submitted by /u/BusDriv3r5
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