Started at an in-network hospital and was transported to an out of network hospital. Hospital is billing us $42k

Back in August, my son was diagnosed with pneumonia. He was taken to our regional hospital’s emergency room which is in-network with our insurance. He was admitted to the hospital to be monitored over night. His symptoms worsened and the hospital had reached the maximum level of care they could provide. They determined that he would need to be transported to PICU vía life flight. The hospital did not give us any options, simply told us where we would be going. He spent the next 5 days there.

Turns out that even though this hospital is still under the same hospital system as the regional hospital, this particular hospital was out of network. They never disclosed this when we were transported and due to the level of stress we were facing with our son’s health we did not contact insurance. We recently got a $42,000 bill from the hospital and they are not budging on reducing it. So far we have contacted our insurance and explained the situation. They have paid the hospital as if they were in-network with this facility. However, the hospital will not honor this and is still expecting us to pay $42k. We filed an application for financial assistance, however, this application was denied. We are appealing this decision and are awaiting a response. We’ve also contacted our insurance to file a single case agreement and that is still pending.

What other avenues do we have left? We are feeling hopeless. We feel like we are being penalized for doing what was best for our son. The hospital did not give us an in-network option, nor did they disclose our insurance was out of network. They also did not give us a “fair estimate” for the treatment he received.