Girlfriend had life threatening ectopic pregnancy and health insurance not covering it

My girlfriend had an ectopic pregnancy that required emergency care and treatment. This required lots of medication and time spent in the emergency room. Currently, the bills have been coming in and (so far) total over 16,000 dollars. The insurance company informed us that this falls under maternity care and therefore they do not cover it because that is not covered under her plan. From my perspective, this was emergency care, but maybe I don't have a full understanding of the rules around what exactly is considered maternity care.

I really don't know what to do in this situation to help. We asked the insurance company about appealing the decision but they said it wouldn't do anything. She lives in South Carolina. Any advice would be helpful I'm just super stressed out about it, the hospital is threatening to send the bills to collections and I don't know if we should just go on a monthly payment plan to pay it off and if dealing with the insurance company is worth it at all.

submitted by /u/handy_genitals
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