Any hope of having a health insurance deductible waived or reduced?

Recently went to the ER for having extremely painful muscle spasms. I literally could barely make it to the vehicle to be taken after having pain in my lower back for 5 hours from the spasms. At the time I didn’t know it was muscle spasms and legitimately thought there was something very wrong with me. It has to be one of the most painful things I’ve been through, and for comparison I have 2 brands on my arm.

I just got my bill and it has itemized:

CT SCAN-GENERAL $7,451.00

EMERGENCY ROOM-GENERAL $3,547.00

PHARMACY-EXTENSION SINGLE SOURCE DRUG $122.95

BCBS Payments & Adjustments -$9578.54

Patient Balance $1569.41

Am I wrong to find that balance to be unreasonable? I can’t even comprehend how unfair this is. To compound on this I am finding out that cash and medicaid prices are lower than private insurance prices. How is it reasonable that the hospital can charge different amounts for the same things? Is there anything I can do to negotiate the remaining balance?

See also  Short-term coverage for US citizen permanently returning to US from abroad