The doctor didn't charge the health insurance in time, am I liable?
This has a straightforward answer. It's likely that your doctor and the hospital have no responsibility to ensure that your insurance claim is filed in a timely manner. They bill you whether you or they get reimbursed by insurance, or not. The insurance company is more than happy not to pay you any way they can. Sorry if this is harsh, but it's up to you to follow through. See also here. "I work for a health billing company. It is completely the provider's responsibility to bill your health insurance in a timely manner if they have your health insurance information on file (it sounds like they did). If you can gather a copy of your EOB (Explanation of Benefits) from your health insurance, it will likely say something to the extent of: ""claim was submitted after the timely filing limit, therefore no payment was made. The patient is not liable for the remaining balance."" Don't let the hospital/physician bully you into paying for something they should have submitted to the insurance in the first place." I was in a similar situation years back and I refused to pay the bill. My point of view was that I provided the hospital with all information needed to submit the claim in a timely matter and that I should not be held responsible for their failure to do so. In the end they waived the charges. So while technically I might have been responsible for paying the charges, in reality I think they decided it wasn't worth the hassle of making me (I would have fought it all the way up to the top). Not sure that I would recommend this approach though :) The hospital likely has a contract with your insurance company which makes them obligated to bill the insurance before billing you! I had a similar occurrence that was thrown out when my insurance company provided a copy of a contract with the hospital to the judge. So if there is an agreement they must file with the insurance in timely manner. That is your bill because the services were performed for you.   You still can negotiate with the doctor however.  Suggest that while you aren't willing to pay the full share, you will pay the negotiated amount he would have actually gotten from the insurance company (or some fraction thereof).  Doc did make a mistake, but you are very much liable for it. "I had a similar issue take place at a hospital when the repeatedly billed the ""wrong me"" -- a stale insurance record left behind from when I was a dependent on my parent's insurance a decade earlier. They ended up billing me for anesthesia when I had a major surgery (everything else was billed to the correct insurance.) The outsourced billing people were pretty unhelpful (not usually the case with hospitals), so I became the squeaky wheel. I sent certified letters, had my priest rattle the cage (it was a Catholic hospital) and eventually talked myself into a meeting with the VP of Finance, who started paying attention when the incompetence of his folks became apparent. Total cost: $0 + my time." "Here's my thought - call the insurance company back. Ask them to just tell you what the ""reasonable and customary"" approved payment would be. Offer that exact amount to the hospital, it's what they would have gotten anyway, and you learned a cheap lesson." If you read all that paperwork they made you fill out at the emergency room, there is probably something in there explicitly stating that you owe any bills you rack up regardless of what happens with the insurance company. They generally have a disclaimer that filing for you with your insurance company is a courtesy service they offer, but they are not obliged to do it.  Ultimately, you are responsible for your bills even if the provider slow-billed you.  Sorry.
"Based on the updated information  ""I'm able to get my health insurance in full from my old job which is   why still have it(ABC). Anthem Blue cross only costs me about 15   dollars a month. At my new job I work full time so I took up the   healthcare because eventually I will more than likely get rid of my   old one(or loose it)."" There are a couple of issues:  The old company will no longer be paying for the ABC policy, you will have to cover the entire cost. The cost could be significantly m ore than $15 a month. One will be primary and one will be secondary. You will have to tell them about each other. How they will interact when one is a percentage and the other a copay will have to be investigated. Look back at all your procedures from last year, and ask how they would cover them. You will also need to see if your doctors and specialists are in both networks. This could create situations where the 2nd policy provides no coverage because you went out of their network. You could also require multiple referrals." "You can deduct what you pay for your own and your family's health insurance regardless of whether it is subsidized by your employer or not, as well  as all other medical and dental expenses for your family, as an itemized deduction on Schedule A of Form 1040, but only to the extent that the  total exceeds 7.5% of your Adjusted Gross Income (AGI) (10% on tax returns for year 2013 onwards). As pointed out in KeithB's comment, you cannot deduct any health insurance premium (or other medical expense) that was paid for out of pre-tax dollars, nor indeed can you deduct any medical expense to the extent that  it was paid for by the insurance company directly to hospital or doctor (or reimbursed to you) for a covered expense; e.g. if the insurance company reimbursed you $72 for a claim for a doctor's visit for which you paid $100 to the doctor, only $28 goes on Schedule A to be added to the amount that you will be comparing to the 7.5% of AGI threshold, and the $72 is not income to you that needs to be reported on Form 1040. Depending on other items on Schedule A, your total itemized deductions might not exceed the standard deduction, in which case you will likely choose to use the standard deduction. In this case, you ""lose"" the deduction for medical expenses as well as all other expenses deductible on Schedule A. Summary of some of the discussions in the comments   Health care insurance premiums cannot be paid for   from HSA accounts (IRS Pub 969, page 8, column 2, near   the bottom) though there are some exceptions.  Nor   can health care insurance premiums be paid from an   FSA account (IRS Pub 969, page 17, column 1, near the top). If you have a business on the side and file a Schedule C as a self-employed person, you can buy medical insurance for that business's employees (and their families too, if you like) as an employment benefit, and pay for it out of the income of the Schedule C business, (thus saving on taxes). But be aware that if you have employees other than yourself in the side business, they would need to be covered by the same policy too.  You can even decide to pay all medical expenses of your employees and their families too (no 7.5% limitation there!) as an employment benefit but again, you cannot discriminate against other employees (if any) of the Schedule C business in this matter.  Of course, all this money that reduced your Schedule C income does not go on Schedule A at all. If your employer permits your family to be covered under its health insurance plan (for a cost, of course), check whether you are allowed to pay for the insurance with pre-tax dollars.  The private (non-Schedule C) insurance would, of course, be paid for with post-tax dollars.  I would doubt that  you would be able to save enough money on taxes to make up the difference between $1330/month and $600/month, but it might also be that the private insurance policy covers a lot less than your employer's policy does.  As a rule of thumb, group insurance through an employer can be expected to offer better coverage than privately purchased insurance. Whether the added coverage is worth the additional cost is a  different matter.  But while considering this matter, keep in mind that privately purchased insurance is not  always guaranteed to be renewable, and a company might decline to renew a policy if there were a large number of claims. A replacement policy might not cover pre-existing conditions for some time (six months? a year?) or maybe even permanently.  So, do consider these aspects as well.  Of course, an employer can also change health insurance plans or drop them entirely as an employment benefit (or you might quit and go work for a different company), but as long as the employer's health plan is in existence, you (and continuing members of your family) cannot be discriminated against and denied coverage under the employer's plan." Yeah, me too, as I said. Actually what I'd really prefer is single payer, but failing that, getting health insurance separated from employment would be a big step forward. If people really knew how much they are paying for health insurance, things would change.  I've never worked for an employer that didn't renegotiate health insurance every year, often changing insurance providers every year. To the extent that HR departments are competent in finding the best value, the current environment is pretty dynamic and competitive. Are individuals going to be as competent and well informed as HR departments? I don't know, but I do know that simply making a market free doesn't guarantee lower prices if consumers are ill-informed and bad at making decisions.  As for wages, currently companies are not required to carry health insurance, and many have dropped it already without increasing wages, so I don't see an upward pressure on wages from greater employee mobility.  But it's true that if there were a single large pool for insurance to be based off of, large businesses would no longer get the pool advantage of health insurance over small businesses. Hence my preference for single-payer, or single-group/multi-payer. "Whoa whoa whoa, let's not twist that data and make an assertion that it doesn't support. Yes, medical inflation has outpaced the CPI for ages, *but* when you disaggregate spending into Medicare (US single-payer) and private insurers, [Medicare is able to better contain costs](http://content.healthaffairs.org/content/22/2/230.full) (my hypothesis: likely due to its ability to leverage its scale and keep costs low, while private insurers are fragmented against strong provider networks).   But wait! you're thinking: shouldn't market forces keep insurance outlays low? It's Econ 101, right? Theoretically they should, but this ignores the industrial structure of healthcare providers and assumes perfect competition that doesn't exist. Typically, providers (doctors groups, hospitals, etc) are [highly localized and able to exercise significant market power in a community](http://content.healthaffairs.org/content/23/2/8.full) relative to several insurance plans who are competing to contract that provider ""in-network."" For example, when Aetna, Cigna, and BCBS go up against, hypothetically, Cedars-Sinai to negotiate payment rates, Cedars has the ability to obtain high reimbursement rates because the three insurers have to have that provider in-network to remain competitive. Ironically, the less competition on the insurer side in that market, the better reimbursement rates would be observed since the sole insurer would capture a large fraction of patients in the geographic area served and could use that volume to negotiate better rates.  Finally, there's the overhead issue. Medicare has lower overhead expenses than private insurers do (again, my guess: greater economies of scale and lower advertising and marketing costs, coupled with no profit motive). [Even health insureres themselves agree (.pdf warning)](http://www.cahi.org/cahi_contents/resources/pdf/CAHI_Medicare_Admin_Final_Publication.pdf) that Medicare has lower overhead costs, and that includes some questionable addition of what the authors claim are hidden Medicare expenses.  I'm inclined to believe that a single-payer is probably more efficient and cheaper than a fragmented private insurance market. That said, I also find some sympathy to the argument that maintaining a robust private insurance market may spur innovation on payor innovation (e.g., increased participation in wellness programs for enrollees, or increasing the likelihood that patients be more sensitive to costs and benefits when seeking care). After all, countries like Germany and Switzerland are able to maintain a private insurance market while ensuring nearly universal coverage. Either way, though, arguing that health inflation alone makes single payer systems ""mathematicaly unsustainable"" isn't a strong argument, since private insurers are currently doing **worse** on cost containment." "In addition to the good answers already provided, I want to point out that many (most?) providers will handle filing your health insurance claim for you even though it's really your responsibility. So here's how medical bills ""you don't have to pay"" might come about: * It's possible that your balance is $4, or $20, or $65, or even still $100 depending on your particular insurance plan. Whatever is left at this step is what you pay." There are actual cases where this has occurred. In cases where the beneficiary was suspected of knowing that the insured person was alive, they have faced fraud charges. In cases where they appeared to act in good faith, the legal consequences are less severe, but the likelihood of the insurance company to sue for their money back will depend on the circumstances and the amount of the payout. One interesting case was a woman who abandoned her family and didn't reappear until 11 years later. The family didn't know where she was, so they probably won't end up paying back the relatively small $100,000 that they received. This is referred to as an HSA Mistaken Distribution. An HSA mistaken distribution occurs when you take a distribution and later find out that it is not for a qualified medical expense.  For example, this could occur if you accidentally pay for a restaurant dinner with your HSA debit card.  It can also occur if you take a distribution to pay for a medical expense, but then are later reimbursed by insurance. This is discussed in the instructions for IRS forms 1099-SA and 5498-SA.  (Note: these forms are submitted by the HSA bank, not the consumer, so the instructions are addressed to them.) HSA mistaken distributions.   If amounts were distributed during the year from an HSA because of a mistake of fact due to reasonable cause, the account beneficiary may repay the mistaken distribution no later than April 15 following the first year the account beneficiary knew or should have known the distribution was a mistake. For example, the account beneficiary reasonably, but mistakenly, believed that an expense was a qualified medical expense and was reimbursed for that expense from the HSA. The account beneficiary then repays the mistaken distribution to the HSA.  You have until April 15 in the year following the refund to repay the HSA and avoid the extra tax and penalty that should be paid if you were to keep the distribution that was not ultimately used for medical expenses.  When you send the money to the HSA bank, you need to explicitly tell them that it is a mistaken distribution repayment, so that they can report it to the IRS correctly and it will not affect your contribution limits. You will often receive a lower bill if you simply wait for a second or third billing statement. I was once given the advice to never pay a medical bill until after they had sent three notices, because they will almost certainly reduce the amount due. Sounds crazy, right? I have excellent credit, so the idea of risking it by ignoring bills disturbed me greatly, and I scoffed at the advice.  I then had a similar experience to you, and decided to take the advice. By the third statement, the bill was reduced to less than half of the original, with zero intervention on my part. I then paid it without any impact to my credit whatsoever. I've since done that every time I receive healthcare services, and the bill is always reduced on subsequent statements, generally to less than half of the original bill. Sometimes it's because insurance finally got around to paying. Sometimes a credit is mysteriously added. Sometimes line items disappear without explanation. (Line items sometimes appear over time, too, but the overall balance generally goes down.) I don't know the reason for it, but it works. This has happened with a variety of providers, so it's not just one company that does it. Granted, I never called to negotiate the price, so I can't say if I would've gotten a better deal by doing that. I like it because it requires no time or effort on my part, and it has greatly reduced my medical bills with zero impact to my credit. I only have personal anecdotes to back it up, but it's worked for me.