<prompt> Human: This is my first time having insurance. I am a grad student and my school requires us to get insurance so I purchased a plan through obamacare. My PCP recommended I get a genetic blood test for breast cancer because my sister was just diagnosed. I said I would only if it was covered by insurance and my doctor said it would be. Turns out that this is not covered because it is not medically necessary and the lab that my doctor used is also out of network. I feel like Im screwed because I assume its my own responsibility to know these things before getting it done. Unfortunately this is my first time having insurance so I was and probably still am horribly uninformed. The lab filed an appeal and it was denied. I have no idea what to do now and I feel helpless with this bill. As a grad student, you could add my w-2s from the last few years and it still wouldnt be enough to cover this bill. Do I have any other options besides having this sent to collection? :  <response>: First of all, doctors are worried about giving you the most effective care, the care most likely to keep you alive.They arent going to be worried about the cost of that care unless you make them worry about it.Even if you ask them about the relative costs, they probably have no real clue. They will just tell you to talk to the billing people.You have to be pro-active about this stuff and not expect doctors to give you cheap care or care that works with your insurance or whatever else.Secondly, a lot of medical providers have a rule that they will not sell any debt to collections as long as it has recent payments towards the balance.Many medical providers will give you 0 interest loans and as long as you make a token payment like 5m then they will hold the loan forever.Maybe it wont ever get paid off, but at least it wont go to collections and hurt your credit score.You should look into that. 