I think a sane first step would be a N-month statute of limitations on bills. Anything you're going to be billed for should be sent within N-months. I'm not saying that it should take that long. I'm saying right now there's no limit whatsoever. You could receive a bill for some itemized sub portion (lab work, specialist, a different doctor, etc) a year after a hospital visit and you have no clue what it's for.
The bill turned out to be legitimate, in that the doctor was a "traveling anesthesiologist" and was never an employee of the hospital. And they billed separately, and were never given my insurance information. The whole case ended up relying on my wife's signature on a long legal form that she signed while she was dilated to an 8. All the contact information (address, phone, company name) on the documentation led to people who could not confirm any details on the bill. The hospital told me that they have had a lot of reports of doctors who do their own billing not sending bills for months because they're not very organized.
Eventually the anesthesiologist billed it to my insurance correctly and I paid 10% of it. I later found out I could sue the debt collector for not providing details fast enough, but the statute of limitations on their violation had expired.
What was the statute of limitations in this case?
This is all under Colorado law, btw.
Subsequent children were under an HMO, and we never saw a bill.
(One of the hospital staff could be in on the scam, and target based on insurance coverage, but then they wouldn't need the birth announcements in the paper.)