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Talk to the facility, collections agency and insurance company. I had a similar issue with an ambulance bill after a car accident and the collections agency and insurance company resolved it.
I would make the call to the insurance the priority. They can confirm whether anything was submitted. If not, call the hospital and tell them they need to submit everything to insurance. In IL, I painfully found out they have 12 months to do this from the date of service. I was also informed that the collections does not appear on your credit report (still cringy).
Do not give in. They’re trying to make you pay for it without insurance. It’s really criminal.
This happens to me with like every medical bill these days. They are doing it on purpose b/c they don't want to deal with the insurance companies. Some states have laws about this. I don't recall whether there is a federal law at this point. Report them to the BBB and the state's attorney general, for starters.
Also you can try reaching out to the HR department of the employer who provides the insurance. It isn't exactly intuitive, but snafus involving employer-provided insurance fall under the umbrella of HR. HR straightened out for us the absolute nightmare of improper medical billing arising from the birth of a child. One can also report the situation to NPR in order to shame the medical provider, billing agency, and collection agency on a national scale. They report on stories like this about 1x / week. That is how I learned the HR trick.
Oh, another tip - a game of telephone occurred as the matter passed through the medical billers and ultimately to collections. Fairly often, key details are scrambled in the process. If collections doesn't have a key detail right, such as the name of the doctor, the service performed, the date of the service, etc., then just tell them that you never saw a doctor by that name, etc. as applicable, and miraculously - in my experience - they just drop efforts to collect. They can't collect for a service that didn't actually happen and I guess it is more trouble than it is worth for them to run down the correct details. Do not lie to them - the line is recorded.
And tell your friend not to stress. Clearly this happens to people (or maybe just me) all the time and the world does not end. And I never pay a dime for such billing screwups.
Thank you so much for your insight! Very helpful.