Emergency Transfer during Birth. Health Insurance won’t cover?

Hi everyone!

I'd like to pick your brains on this. My wife and I were patients at a Birth Center in Illinois (for a more patient-centered experience, yet knowing that if an emergency arises, we would need to transfer to a hospital). Being a patient at the Birth Center and all the services there were covered by BCBS ("Blue Choice Preferred PPO"). Knowing that a transfer to a hospital might be necessary (in case of a medical emergency), the Birth Center folks checked with my wife's insurance to see if the preferred hospital (close nearby) would be covered: We got a yes. Of course, on the day of delivery, there were complications and my wife was transferred via ambulance to said hospital. Months later. We found out that per BCBS, the hospital was out-of-network (for our specific insurance) and we are left with a $11,000 bill. Of course, we would have never agreed to transfer to said hospital if we had known but to a different one, in the network. (It was an emergency but not life/death, so a different hospital would have also worked).
Do any of you have any advice on how to navigate this?
(One might say, we should have checked ourselves but of course, we trusted the medical professionals, checking for us and telling us it was approved).

PS: Yes, the baby girl is healthy and so is my wife.

PPS: The emergency ambulance transfer was fully covered by the insurance.

submitted by /u/Tiny-Bake6560
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