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What do we do about unexpected medical bills?

My husband and I have been with Blue Cross for the past year. His company decided to switch to United healthcare. My husband was told we would have blue cross until the end of January. I came down with strep and had to go to the doctor. They gave me a shot and did some lab work while I was there. I also had separate lab work a couple weeks ago because I'm on accutane. I also had a couple prescriptions filled. I found out after all of this that our insurance ended the end of December. Our new insurance has a $3000 deductible- so even if it's retroactive I'll still be paying out of pocket for all my medical care this month. So......I'm guessing all the bills could be as high as $2500. ( Labs are apparently very expensive) Hopefully I'm wrong about how much it will all cost. If I'm right though......what would be the best way to pay it? We could probably only afford to pay $100 a month and I'm assuming they won't let us break up the payments that much. What the heck should we do? We've always had such good credit. My stomach is in knots. :(

Public Comments

1. If you can only afford $100 a month, send $50 a month. If you are making payments, they really can't report that you are delinquent now, can they? Call their billing department, explain your situation, and tell them it is $50 a month or nothing (Not really, but you will have to bluff that you don't care about your credit rating, tell them your credit is already wrecked, and that one unpaid medical bill isn't the end of the world for you) Unpaid medical bills are the most common form of credit blemishes.
2. i'm guessing that you are a little high on your estimate for the bill. whatever it is if you can't pay in full talk to the billing department at the doctor's office and work out a payment plan. in my experience they will work with you on it.
3. Your employer is legally obligated to explain in full any benefits changes and if they did not do so you should talk to the head of the HR dept because they can get in a lot of trouble. Did you have to sign anything explaining the specific changes? Check AARPs website...they had an article about this sort of thing a couple of days ago. I am sure you aren't the only one at your work who is dealing with that sort of problem.