Comment by noud

I'm too European to understand why this makes any sense. I think the problem is not really that the insurance doesn't want to pay the bill, the problem is that $18,933.44 for stitches and anesthesia makes absolutely no sense at all. Therefore, the resolution is not to negotiate with your insurance and tell them exactly what happened so that you can split the bill. The resolution is to negotiate with the hospital about the costs of stitches and anesthesia. In Europe (Netherlands in my case) the insurance usually pays everything (part one of the solution), which forces the insurance to negotiate with the hospital about prices (part two of the solution). Keeping most simple interventions low in costs.