My wife was in a near-fatal traffic accident on 2015 (she was a pedestrian). She spent about a month in the hospital and a month in in-patient rehab. Extremely fortunate for us (and most importantly), she's made a 99% full recovery
She was insured, so that absorbed most of the $1M bill (though the insurance negotiated the bill from the hospital and rehab center to 400k somehow) associated with her care. Several months ago (i.e. 2 years later) we were informed that the insurance company had deemed my wife's last week in rehab "not medically necessary" and refused to pay the rehab center. So the rehab center responded by sending us a $26,000 bill. Due in 30 days lol.
The rehab center is the one who fixed her discharge date (we had no input) and it's not like we're in a position to determine when she's fit to facilitate her recovery on her own. The insurance company still refuses to pay after we called them.
So we're left with a) don't pay the bill and see what happens (credit score hit? Law suits?); b) hire attorneys that will likely cost about as much as the original bill; or c) pay?
Luckily my wife and I have the savings on hand to pay the bill without threatening our livelihood, but is there really no other options for us? How would the average American whose after-tax salary is ~30-40k deal with this?
Btw, if anyone has advice it would be much appreciated. We've talked to some attorneys about Option B but it's uncertain if the cost of retaining a lawyer would outweigh the size of the bill itself.