Provider is billing me (and insurance) for a surgery they don’t do…

Location: Missouri, United Staes

I went to the local breast center in May. I was supposed to get an image assisted biopsy (medical billing code 19081).

They took 2 images, couldn’t find the mass they were supposed to biopsy, and cancelled the rest of the procedure.

I was told I’d only see a claim/bill for images.

A few days later I saw the claim go through for the full procedure. I called billing, told them this was not correct. The billing agent told me it was “standard procedure to claim under the planned procedure even if it didn’t occur and there would just be notes saying what did occur and the insurance company would adjust.”

Well that’s not what happened and they billed me the full amount.

It was supposed to be $7k but after the allowable amount the bill was $1380 and I got billed the whole thing because it hit my deductible.

I Called to dispute and it went back for review. UHC told me the claim was submitted with notes stating the procedure was completed without incident. And I confirmed with them that the claim was indeed submitted for a full and complete biopsy with anesthetic, sample collection, and a surgical insertion of a locator bb (metal thing so they could find the area again). None of that happened.

was told on 6/16 that the provider was sent the bill back and told to correct the claim.

Now they know darn good and well they didn’t so the biopsy but they returned it to billing saying it was properly filed and billed.

I was dumped in someone’s voicemail that is out of the office for the next few weeks.

I don’t know where to go from here. There’s plenty of resources of this happens to Medicaid/Medicare (Upcoding) but can I strong arm them to make it right outside of taking out a billboard ads next to the the hospital stating “x hospital deliberately bills patients for procedures that never happened- ask me for my proof” (a la Ebbing Missouri!)?

Basically I know they don’t give a hoot- they’ll have billing blame the provider, provider blame billing— and we will go around and around. What do I do?