Lab Bills with no estimate

Husband went in for his annual physical. While there he mentioned a few other things bothering him, so the dr ordered some labs. Husband has no idea what is ordered, just goes along with it. The office has its own lab and he was ushered in and had blood drawn, there are signs up saying “Your insurance may not cover labs done at this office so please ask”, so husband asks. The lab tech says- don’t worry, they usually cover it.
Well of course for some stupid reason our insurance doesn’t cover labs drawn in our own PCP’s office. And this dr had ordered a bunch of extra labs, not just the normal tests for the annual physical. So we owe $800 for that.

Then my son goes for his exam at the same PCP. He has labs ordered as well, but he’s in a rush so the dr says he can just go to the hospital lab affiliated with the practice and walk in to their lab anytime. My son does this, we just got the EOB and all these labs went to deductible. $1100 total. This was after a routine exam as well!

First- should a doctor be ordering lab work for patients that will cost this much money without offering some sort of estimate or warning on the cost ahead of time? I understand that doctors don’t necessarily know the price tag on everything but this was a shock.

Second- I have a lot of health issues and am on the same policy as the husband and son. I have had lab work done multiple times this year at different clinics and labs (but not the ones they went to), and never once had a copay or anything charged to deductible. Is it this particular hospital system I wonder? Although it is our family PCP and is listed in-network?

submitted by /u/LegWorried4639
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