No, but my newborn had to go to the ER once and it kicked off 18 months of billing disputes with the hospital. And the thing I learned was the depths of incompetence, malice, and laziness that a hospital billing department was capable of.
One of the key lessons - if a doctor submits an incorrect billing code, insurance can't do anything to change it. If a doctor doesn't want to work with insurance to fix the codes, you as a patient have so few options to do anything.
I'm very sorry to hear that, I've been through any number of ER visits with my child. I have not personally had any issues with hospital billing departments, so perhaps I have been lucky. It is only the insurance I've had problems from.
But it's not the only billing problem I have had. A hospital billed us double for an emergency c-section (once for the mother, and again for the child) and hit us with $300k in claims. A dermatologist once faked a surgery and sent it to my insurance. And don't even get me started on the exploitative agreements hospitals sign with ambulance companies.
We're not even people who spend a lot of time in hospitals - but we are pretty close to a 100% hit rate for billing issues with hospitals. Even during times in my life when I didn't have insurance.
I get that people kind of ascribe all sorts of medical billing problems to insurance companies. But I think a lot of it is kind of ignorance comes from inept hospital management shifting blame. And often doctors and practitioners themselves are very removed and unaware of the awful billing at their own practices.
One of the key lessons - if a doctor submits an incorrect billing code, insurance can't do anything to change it. If a doctor doesn't want to work with insurance to fix the codes, you as a patient have so few options to do anything.